


stick with what i started (don't care how it hurts)

by gravityinglass



Series: Life and Times of Marcia Staal [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: F/F, Miscarriage, Surrogacy, canon typical violence (non-graphic), longfic, the life and times of Marcia Staal, tragedy and recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 08:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12678618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravityinglass/pseuds/gravityinglass
Summary: When Marcia Annemieke Staal is born on an early January morning, she’s born breech. She’s always thought that was a metaphor for her life: feet first, ready to hit the ground running. It’s a good thing she sees it like that, because once she starts, she never really stops.She’s used to being the odd one out in any given room. The only daughter, the only defense player, the only lesbian. When she gets to New York, she gets used to being the only woman on the team, and they get used to being the only team with a defensewoman manning their blueline. It’s a give and take, but mostly she takes: her place, her time, her way.Marcia Staal didn’t set out to make history, but while she’s here, she’ll kick some ass.--Or, Marcia Staal falls in love, ups her game, has her heart broken, proves her worth, builds a family, falls apart, pulls it together, receives a gift, plays some damn good hockey, and kicks some ass, not necessarily in that order.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonthetrade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonthetrade/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520040) by [wonthetrade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonthetrade/pseuds/wonthetrade). 



> This work is technically a fanfic of a fanfic; it’s written for wonthetrade’s Girl Brigade ‘verse! It’s written to fit within their framework and still stand on its own; the large reason for that is because they wrote their universe with a much wider eye and my own hockey knowledge is pretty shaky. I largely focused on Marcia Staal, running from a line Marcia has within Jordie’s story. This fic is focused on Marcia and her relationship with Lindsay and her brothers, whereas their Girl Brigade fic focuses on the women and their relationships; this is done to keep from creeping too close to their work. This may change if either of the authors tell me a piece within this work is too close to their universe; I mean no infringement.
> 
> If you found this by searching yourself or someone you know, I highly recommend turning back. This is a work by a fan, for other fans, and is not meant to cast aspersions on anyone in real life. It’s also entirely not backed up in any kind of truth, insofar as I am aware. Perhaps in a parallel universe. I can’t stop you, obviously, but I also can’t make you unknow the things you will know upon reading this.
> 
> Stylistic notes: anything in italics is spoken in Dutch.  
> As I am not a sportswriter and not altogether confident in my knowledge of a hockey season that happened when I was literally ten years old, there were multiple resources I used. These resources are cited in-text with footnotes and links! Articles are mocked up from real life sources; sources are therefore linked and annotated as necessary. See the posted extras fic following this for full citation.
> 
> This fic does work with topics such as pregnancy, miscarriage, postpartum depression, institutionalized sexism and homophobia, and canon-typical violence. Nothing is explicit, but if those are things that worry you, drop me a line and I’ll give you a spoiler summary, and you can make the best decision for you, if you so choose to proceed.
> 
> Title from Icon For Hire’s Up In Flames.

 

[ _“We’re not hard to love, the love that we get isn’t easy._ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9520040) _”_

_“You’re saying the same fucking thing-”_

_“I’m not. Look. Look at Lindsay, okay? Jesus. She puts up with so much of my shit. You guys don’t even know the half of what she puts up with.”_

_Jordie blinks. “But she loves you.”_

_“Endlessly. Unconditionally. God knows why, but she does. That is what I’m talking about. It’s not us, okay? We’re not the bad guys or the rough guys or the girls that are too tomboy for this shit. We get…” She huffs. “We get Sid’s love. The kind she gets from Malkin, you know? The shit that’s going on with fucking McJesus and the whiz kid in Buffalo.”_

__

**Overture**

__

When Marcia Annemieke Staal is born on an early January morning, she’s born breech. She’s always thought that was a metaphor for her life: feet first, ready to hit the ground running. It’s a good thing she sees it like that, because once she starts, she never really stops.

She’s used to being the odd one out in any given room. The only daughter, the only defense player, the only lesbian. When she gets to New York, she gets used to being the only woman on the team, and they get used to being the only team with a defensewoman manning their blueline. It’s a give and take, but mostly she takes: her place, her time, her way.

As a teenager, she plays on her brothers’ teams, and darts flirty looks at the girls in her chem class, and wonders the differences between lesbian and bisexual before deciding she's got time to find herself a label. She is the first of the Staal brood to settle down, though it gives her grandmother hives to admit it, being yet another Staal woman to marry before 20.

As an adult, she carves her own path and keeps an eye on the women who follow in her footsteps. In the NHL, she is the first woman to get suspended for fighting, the second to be benched with a concussion, the third to earn her A, the fourth to play a full season. Someday she wants to be uncountable along women, only one of a thousand to have played her game and played it well.

Marcia Staal didn’t set out to make history, but while she’s here, she’ll kick some ass.

 


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the groundwork is laid.

#  ****

#  **One**

[Lightning in a Bottle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLgXl_6NIW0): ( _and the fake tattoo that you drew on my arm/had an x and an o/’never change who you are’)_

__

If Marcia were to wind time back and stop at what she thought was the beginning, she wouldn’t know where to start.

When she was drafted? No, rewind.

When she was born? Too far back, fast forward.

When she got married? No, rewind.

After all, Marcia doesn’t define her own life in terms of chronological events; she defines her life in terms of team eras, in people who surrounded her at the time, in who was in lockstep as time moved forward.

She thinks it all winds to Lindsay; for Marcia, all roads lead home.

Lindsay is the kind of girl who never imagined being a hockey wife because she was never interested in the hockey boys. Marcia, though, is every hockey boy stereotype, minus a dick and plus a cunt, and it turns out that kind of turns Lindsay on.

They’ve known each other forever; in the friendliest sense, Marcia has known Lindsay as long as she can remember. They were on the same petite hockey team until Marcia made the switch to boys’ hockey and a rougher game. They grew apart after that, but Marcia still saw Lindsay fairly regularly, in the way agemates in the same small school knew each other. There were enough late afternoons after school where they sat in front of the school and waited to be collected, laughing with Jordan. One hot summer when they were eleven, Lindsay stayed with the Staals and slept on a mattress dragged into Marcia’s room. Lindsay’s mom slept in Oma and Opa’s little guest apartment above the kitchen.

Later, Marcia will learn that it was because Lindsay’s parents were divorcing. At the time, it just meant that she finally had another girl in the house.

After that, though, they rarely spoke.

Marcia meets Lindsay again in high school when Lindsay is bundled up in a parka and still stubbornly carrying a bundle of brooms for pick-up Quidditch practice, which is attended by approximately four people willing to run around on broomsticks in minus twelve weather. They're fifteen and Marcia is _gone_.

It takes two weeks, a bouquet of daisies, and a lot of poorly-executed pickup lines for Lindsay to agree to go out with Marcia.

“So you're hot,” Marcia says, dropping into the seat next to Lindsay, dropping the daisies on the table. Everything else so far has failed, so she’s decided to go the blunt route.

Lindsay doesn't look impressed. “And?”

“And we should go on a date.”

That takes Lindsay aback. “Oh, wh-”

“I was hitting on you because I like you.”

Lindsay smiles now, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Not because someone on the team told you to see how far you could get with the resident lesbian?”

“Um, hello, you’re _Linds_. Who got hot.” Marcia leans over and presses an impulsive kiss to Lindsay’s cheek. “So. Date?”

Lindsay laughs, bright and beautiful. “Yes. Okay. I'll go out with you.”

The first Sunday of the month, they all get haircuts. Ma uses the electric buzzers to trim the boys’ hair in order of age--Pa, then Eric, Jordan, and Jared--but she uses a delicate pair of shears to trim Marcia’s split ends. Ma is the only one who gets her hair done professionally, usually while all four of them are at practice. Marcia usually gets her hair trimmed first by merit of not needing to be wrestled onto the stool.

It’s one of these Sundays, when Marcia’s hair has been cut and twisted up into a topknot, Pa has wandered off in search of something to do, and Eric has escaped the kitchen with noticeably shorter hair that Marica decides to ask. They’re playing catch in the snowy yard with a mostly-deflated basketball, waiting for Jordan and Jared to finish so they can play 2v2 on the rink.

“Ihaveadate,” she says in a rush. “Ineedaride.”

Eric drops the basketball he’s gearing up to throw at Marcia. “You have a what now-”

“Oh my god, _nevermind_.”

“No, this is great, _Mars_ has a date, who the fuck is it? Our school is like, four hundred people.” Eric has a shit-eating grin on his face now. Marcia is kind of regretting giving him shit whenever he went on dates. She’s kind of regretting asking him for a ride at all.

“Nevermind, I'll ask Ma.”

“For a ride to your date?”

Marcia scrubs her hands over her face, then swears when she remembers how damp and muddy her hands are from chucking the filthy ball at her brother. She ditches Eric in the yard and goes to wash her hands and clean off her face. Unfortunately, Eric follows.

“Who was stupid enough to ask _you_ out?”

“Someone asked Mars out?” Jordan repeats, popping around the corner like a damn meerkat. His hair is only half-trimmed, so sure enough, Ma peers around the corner next.

Marcia turns off the faucet with a vicious twist. “Why the fuck would you tell them that?” she snaps at Eric, earning herself a sharp _Marcia Annemieke Staal_ from their mother.

“You have a date?” Jared is staring at her wide-eyed, although she’s mostly sure this is a tactic to keep from getting his hair cut for a little while longer.

“Oh my god, yes. I have a date. Someone found me attractive. We’re seeing a film on Saturday. How is this so hard to believe?”

She throws her hands up and splatters water over Eric.

“ _You will bring him here first?_ ” Ma turns to Dutch, as she does whenever any of them get too excited in English. She resettles Jordan back on the stool and turns the clippers back on.

“ _We were planning on meeting at the cinema._ ”

Jordan sticks his tongue out at her. She glares at him.

 _“Is he going to pick you up? Can’t he come in and say hello? He can stay for dinner_.”

“Ma, no.”

“ _She asked me for a ride_ ,” Eric says gleefully, and drops back into English. “Marcia’s dating someone from _town_.”

“Oh my god, I hate all of you, forget I asked!” Marcia storms up the stairs and slams her door shut.

Her room is small, just wide enough for her loft bed and desk underneath. Pa had done some renovating when she hit puberty, and gave her this little space to herself. Half of this room had been given to the boys, to make up for the three of them sharing.

She climbs up her ladder and throws herself into her bed, and works herself up into a proper sulk.

Some time later, someone knocks on her door. It’s not Ma’s firm knock, or Pa’s heavy one. It’s not the knock she developed with Jordan, meaning it’s Jared or Eric, and she can hear Jared complaining in the kitchen.

“Fuck off,” she calls, forgetting that engagement is as good as an invitation in their house.

Her door swings open. “Mars?”

“Fuck _off_.”

Eric pushes his way through her beaded curtain, and sits on her ladder. “Ma says I have to apologize for telling the whole family before you were ready.”

“You're a dick.”

From the kitchen, Ma yells _language_. Marcia groans and flumps her head back down.

“So, uh. You need a ride into town?” She kicks at him. “Hey! Mars!”

“Seriously, go _die_.”

“I was going to offer to drive you, but now I'm gonna make you take out the trash for like, a week now.”

Marcia rolls over and sits up. “Seriously?”

“About the trash? Dead serious. Jupiter swears he saw a moose wandering the southern edge, and I'm not fucking around with that shit.”

She kicks him again. “ _Eric_.”

“ _Moose_ , Marcia. Fuck that.” Ma yells at them again. Eric pats her leg and slides off her ladder. “Good talk.”

Marcia waits until he’s mostly out the door before mumbling “thanks.”

Eric just shoots her a two-fingered salute on his way out the door.

_“Want me to wait until he gets here_?” Eric asks, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “ _Make sure he's on the up and up_?”

 _“You really think I couldn't take any_ dipshit _who tried to pull anything_?” Marcia checks her purse and makes sure she has her money and Ma’s cell phone, loaned to her for the evening. “Come on, Icky.”

Eric quirks a smile at her and mimics. “Come on, Mars.”

Marcia rolls her eyes and slides out of the truck’s cab. “The movie should be over at 10:30, but I’ll call the house when we’re done. Might go...somewhere, I dunno.”

“Ma will kill you if you stay out all night.”

“Good job I’m not planning to.” She slams the door shut and flips him the middle finger when he rolls down the window to shout at her. “Oh my god, Icky, I’m an _adult_.”

“No you’re not,” Eric shouts, but he drives off.

Marcia lingers in the cinema lobby for a few minutes until Lindsay comes in, cheeks flushed with the cold.

Lindsay kisses Marcia hello, which is a pleasant surprise.

“You didn’t have to wear a dress,” Lindsay tells her shyly. “But, uh. You look really good.”

Marcia spins. It's still cold out, but impressing Lindsay had mattered so much. She’d worn her one good party dress, crushed navy-blue velvet with a flirty neckline and short hem, and a pair of wool winter tights. It was still freezing, and she was glad for her heavy parka, but she’d almost had fun doing her hair and Ma sweeping blush over her cheekbones. Less fun had been Jordan pretending to faint in horror, but Lindsay's admiring gaze made it worth it.

Lindsay slows Marcia’s spin by grabbing her hand. Marcia links their fingers together.

“So what are we seeing?” Lindsay asks. She’s blushing, but she doesn't try to pull her hand away.

Marcia buys their tickets. Lindsay gets them popcorn. She feels like there’s a neon sign over their heads screaming _date_ , but no one gives them half a glance.

There’s an awkward moment when the guy checking their ticket stubs asks if they’re sisters. Marcia just glares at him and pulls Lindsay along to find their theater.

Lindsay lets Marcia hold her hand during the movie. They kiss outside the theatre for what feels like forever, until Eric honks the truck's horn and they scramble apart.

“You need a ride home?” Marcia offers. Lindsay nods with a half-smile.

Marcia sits in the middle of the front bench seat, and Lindsay sits at the window, making small talk until they drop Lindsay off at her house. It’s a bit of a drive back to the farm, so Marcia slides over to the window. Eric elbows her as they pull out of Lindsay's driveway.

“ _Cute guy_?” he asks, switching into Dutch, and Marcia can _hear_ the damn eye raise in his voice.

“ _Shut up._ ”

“ _She's pretty_.”

Marcia tries English. “Shut _up_.”

“ _This why you didn’t want to invite your date over to dinner? You think we’d care that she’s a her?”_

Marcia scrubs her hands over her face. _“You all just assumed I’d date guys. I didn’t--I don't know. I never said I was going out with a guy, just that I had a date. What if it went shit? What if it was just--a thing_?”

“ _And you came out to us for no reason_?”

“Not for _no_ reason? But I'm just like…”

Eric elbows her again as they merge onto the highway. “I guess that’s fair. But _was_ it a shit date?”

“No, it was really, really good.”

The road is dark and empty. Technically, Eric isn't old enough to drive. Less technically, everyone knows the Staals and how far out they live from town.

“ _This is what you want, Mars_?” Eric asks. “Lindsay Ruggles?”

Marcia rolls her eyes; Eric is only a year and a half older than her, but he acts almost like Pa sometimes. “ _I want hockey_.”

Eric drops the subject, but Marcia knows the discussion is far from over.

Marcia almost gets away with Lindsay coming to stay for the summer, to help out on the farm and to spend time with another girl, or she does until Eric rats her out.

Then her door gets removed and replaced with a curtain. Eric teases Marcia mercilessly, until Marcia cries in front of Pa and suddenly, the boys’ door is removed too. Marcia is not above playing her hand as Pa’s only baby girl, when it suits her. Jordan glares at Eric for a full week, and it is one of the funniest things Marcia has ever seen.

Lindsay helps Marcia with her chores that summer, the two of them working together to finish in half the time it takes for Jordan and Eric to come back from a sod delivery.

Lindsay begs off when Pa gives Marcia a handful of extra jobs for finishing early.

“Not really fair to your brothers you've grown extra hands for the season,” he’d said, quirking a smile at the two of them. His English is accented unfamiliarly. Marcia only ever really hears him speak English with customers and at church and hockey practice. “And I pay you by the hour anyways. Hop to, Mars.”

Sometimes Marcia couldn't tell if he was uncomfortable with having a gay child but bearing it for her sake, having grown up Catholic but loving his only daughter enough to care for her more than God. She thought maybe he was relieved she was never going to come home accidentally knocked up by a troublemaker boyfriend. She knows they stopped going to Catholic mass the week after Pa found out his daughter liked girls, switching to a smaller Episcopal mass on the other side of town instead. She wonders if any of it has to be mutually exclusive.

When she gets back to the house, the shoulders of her T-shirt are damp with sweat. She pushes the side door open and toes off her muddy work boots, hearing the radio going in the kitchen.

Ma and Lindsay are at the kitchen counter. Ma is patching a pair of jeans that Jordan's torn through--hockey ass has ruined more Staal family jeans than Marcia can count--for Jared to use as work pants. Lindsay is writing something out in a notebook, clearly having doodled in the margins. It's quiet.

Marcia is hit with a future: inheriting the sod farm, when her brothers make the NHL, and when she's outgrown NCAA. There are no women's leagues, and only two women have ever even played NHL hockey. Marcia knows she's _good_ , but to be Sedin good, to be Rheaume good? There's no room in the NHL for female defenseman. She can dream of playing alongside Lemieux, or Jagr, or Sakic. She just can't hang eternity on it, not like Eric can.

But here and now, she can pin her future here. She can daydream about the farm being _hers_ , of Lindsay helping her balance books, of long summer days but free winter evenings for beer leagues and time with Lindsay, of children with Lindsay’s hair and her own eyes, of knowing she is part and parcel of the farm’s existence, and of Lindsay, always Lindsay, only Lindsay.

She knows the improbability if it. She knows how few relationships begun at fifteen last. But she's nothing if not stubborn, if not talented at getting what she wants. She loves Lindsay, knows she's willing to give her everything and then some.

When Lindsay sees Marcia in the doorway, she beckons her over. Ma puts down Jordan’s jeans and goes to get another cup of coffee, so Marcia goes, and leaves thoughts of the future for another day.

That summer, she applies for exceptional player status with the OHL. She doesn’t know what to expect; they’ve only issued it once before, and no girl has ever achieved it with any major junior team before. She knows there are other female players attempting to gain access, but it’s not like she knows many, if any of them. She gnaws her nails down to the quick waiting for her answer, while Eric waits to be drafted to the NHL.

“ _Both of you, quit worrying. It’ll happen,_ ” Ma tells them. It’s a Thursday evening. Sod season hasn’t yet hit full swing, while hockey season is over. She and Pa have the accounting books out on the kitchen counter, doing as much prep for the next week as they can. The rest of them are around the kitchen table to do homework. “ _They know what good players you both are. The NHL wants you, Eric. And the OHL you, Marcia._ ”

Jared is doodling hockey sticks all over his math worksheet. Jordan leans over the table and adds a tiny hockey puck. Eric pulls Jared’s worksheet away from Jordan.

Eric rolls his eyes. “ _I don’t even know where I’ll go.”_

 _“My money’s on Florida.”_ Jordan yelps when Marcia elbows him. “ _What? He’s ranked number one in scouting, and they have the first draft pick!_ ” she elbows him again. “ _Ow! Ma! Mars hit me!_ ”

Marcia pulls her widest, most innocent eyes. Both Ma and Pa look profoundly unimpressed.

“ _What, you don’t want to go to Florida? The Panthers are a good team.”_

_“As if they’d spend their first pick on me.”_

Pa looks at them over his reading glasses. “ _Stop fishing for compliments, Eric. You’re guaranteed top ten.”_

 _“Great, so I’ll definitely be playing with Americans, then_.”

Pa just shakes his head. “ _Linda, what does this say?”_

 _“Can’t you read your own handwriting_?” Ma pulls the accounting book closer to her side of the counter. “Let’s see.”

With their parents distracted, Eric nudges Marcia with his foot under the table. “The OHL will give you status.” He grins widely, comfortable in English. “You don’t even have to go anywhere to get drafted, like I did.”

Marcia grimaces. “Oh, great. So I’ll find out in Nashville when you get drafted.”

“You’ll be busy being my adoring audience instead of sitting at the computer and waiting. Come on, you know I’m rooting for the Petes to take you.”

“I’m not going anywhere that I’m just your baby sister.”

“But you _are_ my baby sister.” Marcia kicks him, hard. He kicks her back. “You could always apply for the SIJHL. Maybe the North Stars will take you.”

“Then we could go to all your games!” Jared chimes in. His math is totally abandoned now in favor of flicking bits of paper at Jordan, who is holding his hands up like a goalpost.

“If I play for the school you can come see my games too,” she reminds them. “The girls’ team is...good.” All three of her brothers make faces; they’ve been on the receiving end of her checks often enough to know she wouldn’t fit well on a girls’ team.

“ _Stop borrowing trouble. You'll go to the OHL_.” Pa points at them with his pen. “ _Jared, have you finished your math?”_

_“...no.”_

_“Then hop to.”_

Jared picks up his pencil, but shows no actual inclination to work on it. “Is Lindsay gonna go with you? I think she should.”

“Lindsay doesn’t play hockey, bud. And Peterborough’s kind of far.”

Ma shuts the accounting book. “If you’re serious about each other, it will work out. Now, Jared, leave your sister alone and finish your math.”

When Marcia is drafted to the OHL, Eric gives her a shirt that reads DMEN DO IT BETTER. Jared gives her one that says BADASS BIG SISTER. Jordan gives her a shirt that says ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BLEEDING. They’re all wrapped messily in Christmas paper, which means they’ve had these gifts for awhile. She wears all three of the shirts until they’re worn through and fraying at the seams.

It turns out her drafting to the OHL is kind of a big deal. All three major junior leagues in the CHL drafted their first girls at the same time. All three of them play different positions, as if the league is testing out where women will best fit. There’s speculation that all three of them are merely token drafts, since no team before had ever considered women before three of them were drafted all at once. That’s not even to go into the fact that Sidney Crosby’s family in Nova Scotia sued the league for discrimination.

Marcia thinks it’s all bullshit. She knows she earned her exceptional status and that she was good enough for Sudbury to draft her second overall regardless of her gender. She’s never actually met Crosby, but from what she’s heard, it was genuine discrimination. Crosby is too good to be ignored. Marcia's never heard of Carey Price before, but she's not exactly familiar with any players from the WHL, much less the goalies.

People keep asking if she knows them, which is completely insane to her. Crosby’s from Nova Scotia. Price is from _Vancouver_. Maybe she’ll meet them at the Memorial Cup. God, she hopes she meets them at the Memorial Cup.

She half expects to break up with Lindsay over the distance between Thunder Bay and Sudbury but they manage. She half hates that word-- _manage_ , as if their relationship is a problem to be handled--and half loves it, because they’re both willing to put in the work and are even succeeding at it.

They get used to the messy business of loving each other across a province, running up stupid phone bills and calling each other at night when the phone rates are cheaper. Sometimes, Lindsay catches a ride with Ma and Pa out to Sudbury to see one of Marcia’s games, and they begin to more than just _manage_.

Ma interrogated Marcia’s billet family about gender and sexuality before she let Marcia live with them, the same way she interrogated Eric's billet family about caffeine intake and if they went to mass. She'd come home from one billet interview with a scowl on her face and had spent half an hour shouting at the Sudbury front office on the phone.

The family Marcia ends up in has two daughters who played hockey, one who plays for a local rec team and one who plays for the NCAA on scholarship. They're nice enough, and let Lindsay spend weekends sometimes, so long as the door stays open. They don't mind that Marcia eats like a teenage boy and has fallen asleep in her gear more than once, but most importantly they’re activists for marriage and gender equality. Four months before she moves in with them, Ontario legalizes gay marriage. It’s emotional when they call her, crying for joy.

Her billet family call her _Marci_ , instead of Marcia like her teachers or Staal like her coaches or Mars like her family. It's strange, but she loves that she gets to grow close to girls her own age that aren't her girlfriend.

Her billet family invites her back for her second year on the Wolves, too.

So Lindsay and Marcia manage, but the summers quickly become a highlight of Marcia’s year. She loves hockey, feels it in every fiber of her being, right into the core of her bones, but she loves Lindsay too.  She loves the crispness of rink air and the heat of Lindsay's mouth, the blooming bruises she gets from a solid check or Lindsay sucking hickies into her collarbone. She loves the comforting embrace of a full set of pads and of being that embrace for Lindsay.

Marcia gives Lindsay her letterman, and steals half of Lindsay’s beanies, and they carry each other along in their day to day lives. It becomes habit, dressing to carry her love along. Eventually, it won't have to be like this, because Lindsay will go where Marcia goes, sealed with a kiss.

It happened like this: Marcia has very bad timing. It seems like the world does too; there’s so much time for them, and yet not nearly enough.

Marcia proposes on Christmas, a week before her eighteenth birthday. They’re in the week-long break Marcia had from the Wolves, a rare winter week with all the Staal siblings home. It’s a spur of the moment thing, Lindsay giggling as they roll out cookie dough and made sugar-covered stars.

The house is full of brothers: Marcia’s three brothers and Lindsay’s two, not to mention half of the Staal clan cousins. There's a Tupperware bin half as tall as Marcia by the back door, filled with skates and sticks in all sizes. The yard in front of the house is filled with cars and trucks as the clan descended.

Jordan is sitting on the other side of the kitchen table, chopping onions and teaching Lindsay the dirtiest swear words he knows in Dutch, while Lindsay trades him back words in French. The rest of their brothers are helping with various kitchen tasks, bitching bitterly that the girls get to do the fun job of making cookies. Marcia thinks it's mostly because they don't get to steal bits of cookie dough.

Marcia was thinking of the future, and a hundred more Christmases like this, with their families combined, of brothers-in-law, and of voices drifting in from the dining room where Pa and Lindsay’s mom are trying to wrestle an extra leaf into the table, and of Ma scolding the littlest cousins who were trying to sneak looks at presents under the tree. She thinks of Lindsay, hands sticky with sugar, with laugh lines at her eyes.

“Marry me,” Marcia blurts out, and five assorted brothers hush immediately. Jordan’s jaw drops, gaping.

“Come again?” Lindsay asks, hands stilling above the cookie sheet.

“Marry me,” Marcia repeats, and then-- “Oh, shit. Wait.”

She scrambles back from the counter and up the stairs to her room, hands still covered in sugar, and retrieves the little velvet bag from the back of her underwear drawer. She skids back into the kitchen, where the Staals and the Ruggles are still staring at each other in shock.

This time, Marcia drops to one knee. “Lindsay, will you marry me?”

“Oh my god, Marcia, yes,” Lindsay says, and kneels to kiss Marcia. Their brothers burst into cheers, drawing the attention of the rest of their family. “You’re an idiot, I hope you know that.”

“I know, but I got you a ring. See? I asked your Nana,” Marcia says, holding out the ring. “She said your Papaw asked her with this, and that you were her only granddaughter so I’d better make sure you put it to good use.”

Lindsay covers her mouth. “When did you see Nana?”

“Thanksgiving,” Marcia admits. So that’s how Marcia proposes, almost completely by accident. Even in the six months since, Lindsay still lingers at the edges of their family group, through what is quickly becoming the most uncertain part of Marcia's life.

When news breaks that the NHL is opening the Draft to women, she laughs until she cries and declares the shirt she’s wearing--Jordan’s gift, from years ago--her luckiest shirt. She wears it to the NHL Combine, layered with her dad’s flannel, her mom’s patched jeans, and one of Lindsay’s beanies. She can hardly believe she’s going, and wonders if she should start pinning her future on the NHL. She has an acceptance to a university, and the Wolves have offered her the captaincy, but now she wonders if it's time to defer.

Before she boards the plane, Jared ties a leather shoelace  strung with bronze knuts to her wrist, fourteen and still entirely embarrassed by his family. He scuttles backwards when she tries to hug him in thanks.

Eric rolls his eyes and pushes Jared into the center of a family hug. His gift is her necklace, a coin from her birth year set into a pendant, and etched with her name. He'd given it to get the year he was drafted, and it's part of a matching set with all of her brothers.

Lindsay hovers at the edges of their group; she’s not quite family, not yet. Her engagement ring is warm when Marcia reaches out to pull her into the family hug.

Marcia loves her as thoroughly as she knows how, and pulls Lindsay’s beanie on tighter. She hugs her family--her parents, her brothers, her fianceé--tight, and goes through security.

When she boards the plane, she is carrying her loved ones with her.

Lindsay and Marcia get married two days after Marcia returns from the combine because Canada is fucking awesome and if Marcia goes to an American team in the draft, Lindsay is damn well coming along for the ride.

Lindsay meets Marcia at the airport, in the car she inherited from her oldest brother when he upgraded to something nicer.

“I think we should get married,” Lindsay says when Marcia is in the passenger seat. She's drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, as if she's nervous.

“We are gonna get married,” Marcia says. “You've got a ring and everything.”

“I mean, like. Actually married, not just planning to.” Lindsay pulls out into the road, carefully not looking at Marcia.

“You mean, start planning? Our moms are going to want a princess wedding.”

“Or we could just get the paperwork processed.” Lindsay bites her lip. “I thought we'd get to go to uni together, you know? We'd have time. But you're going to get drafted in the NHL, and if you end up in, like, North Carolina with Eric, we're going to have to do long-distance again.”

Marcia nods. “So you just want to get it done with?”

“Don't say it like it's a bad thing, I just...I thought we'd have a long engagement. But I want to be with you wherever you go, and I think the best way is to make it clear we're a matched set.” Lindsay still isn't looking at Marcia. “Plus… Lindsay Staal sounds nice, doesn't it?”

Marcia takes Lindsay's hand over the center console. “Yeah. Okay. How do we want to do this?”

“We fill out the license application, take it to the office of the city clerk. They'll marry us, and it'll be done. We can do it whenever we want.”

“Witnesses?”

“No, just the clerk.” Lindsay darts a glance to Marcia. “I want our families there, but you know they'll want a big fuss. I just want...I want you.”

Marcia hums. “I want Jordan there, at least. And rings, first. But then--any day you want, Linds.” She sighs. “This might be all for nothing, you know. There's the lockout, and it's the first women's draft. No team might want to take the risk on me.”

“They'll take you,” Lindsay says. “What did you say about the Rangers, from the combine? It sounded like they wanted you.”

“In _theory_. I'm sure Crosby will go, and Price, but me? There's never been a defensewoman before.”

“So you'll set the precedent, and I'll be with you when you do.”

It turns out telling Jordan about their shotgun marriage was a mistake, because suddenly their whole families know and Marcia gets guilt-trips from every angle about trying to get married without letting the rest of their family know.

Their parents organize a honeymoon for them at a bed and breakfast a few hours north; Eric takes them shopping and awkwardly insists on getting them wedding dresses. Jared and Jordan disappear from the house the morning of the wedding and return with armfuls of wildflowers that Ma bundles into bouquets and braids into their hair.

Neither of them wear white. Marcia wears a navy blue shirtdress, belted in gold. Lindsay wears yellow, belted in blue. Their families wear every other color of the rainbow. In their wedding photo, Lindsay and Marcia kiss, their families cheering on either side. Lindsay holds a bouquet of flowers; Marcia has an umbrella patterned with clouds thrust to the sunny Ontario sky. It’s an explosion of color, and Marcia loves it.

Marcia sets their wedding photo as her desktop background so she can see it every morning.

Their wedding rings are plain yellow gold bands; no point in Marcia having anything fussier when odds are good she’ll lose it in the constant shuffle of taking it on or off at gametime or practice. Lindsay works too much with her hands to want anything that could snag, and she insists her engagement ring is flashy enough for her.

Marcia uses some of her savings to get them, and she's surprised at how relatively inexpensive they are, for the monumental thing they're going to represent. When she slides the ring onto Lindsay’s finger, it looks like it belongs with Lindsay's engagement ring.

Whatever comes, they'll take it on together, even if what comes next is almost entirely uncertain.

ESPN: Home > Hockey > Players> State of the League: Women in Hockey

The hockey world is about to change: the 2005 NHL Entry Draft has officially opened to women, and with the lockout clearing up, it’s looking like a good portion of the top draftees will be women. In honor of this, we here at ESPN have decided to take a look at the queens of hockey: the three women who have so far played in the NHL, and the three women most likely to follow in their footsteps.

Jump to a player: Marion Rheaume | Danielle Sedin | Hayley Wickenheiser | Sidney Crosby | Carey Price | Marcia Staal

 **Marion Rhéaume** , Tampa Bay Lightning

 _Position_ : Goalie  
_Signing Date_ : 1992  
_Games Played in the NHL_ : 2  
_Notable Firsts_ : First woman to play in major junior, first woman to play NHL hockey, first woman to play major league professional sports in the USA  
_Quick Bio_ : Rheaume was the first woman to play in an NHL game with the Tampa Bay Lightning. She was also the first woman to sign a contract to play professional hockey, playing 6 years in the minors in addition to her games with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Rheaume also played for Team Canada the first year women’s hockey was an official Olympic sport (the 1998 Nagano Games) and brought home silver.  
“It’s never been easy. But I’ve always wanted to play hockey. I love hockey. I’d rather play hockey than do anything else. If you have that kind of desire, I think you can achieve what you want to achieve.” ([x](http://covellicentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/BREAKING-BOUNDARIES-INVITATION.pdf))

 **Danielle Sedin** , Vancouver Canucks

 _Position_ : Left Wing  
_Signing Date_ : 1999  
_Games Played in the NHL:_ 92 games and counting across 6 seasons  
_Notable Firsts_ : First woman to play NHL hockey in a position other than goalie; first woman to be signed to an NHL contract; first woman to notch a hat trick in the NHL.  
_Quick Bio_ : Sedin was invited to play for the Canucks after her twin brother _Henrik Sedin _ (center, Vancouver Canucks) was drafted second overall; the pair had been playing together for nearly their entire lives and made it clear that if H. Sedin was drafted, he wouldn’t play without D. Sedin also being offered a contract. Despite not offering a contract equal to her twin’s, the Canucks negotiated a deal with her Swedish team Luleå Hockeyförening where Sedin could play pre-season games and occasional season games. The Canucks have never played her in the Playoffs. With the rise of this years’ draft class, it’s expected that D. Sedin will become a full-time Canuck. She is remarkably quiet on the press line after games; her statements focus on the gameplay rather than the controversy surrounding her place in the league.  
_Remarkable Quote_ : “My brother [Henrik] might be the reason the Canucks signed me. I’m the reason I’m still here.” and “To be half as accepted, we have to be twice as good.  I’m pretty damn good.”

 **Hayley Wickenheiser** , Philadelphia Flyers, Edmonton Oilers

 _Position_ : Centre  
_Signing Date_ : 1999, 2003  
_Games Played in the NHL_ : 32  
_Impact on Hockey_ : First woman to play a full season in a men’s league (Europe), first woman to center a top line, first woman to play for 2 different NHL teams.  
_Quick Bio_ : Wickenheiser is regarded as one of the best female hockey players in the world; she was invited to play in invitational games with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1999 following the signing of D. Sedin; she signed and played with the Edmonton Oilers for 30 games in 2003 but ended up leaving the team to play for Kirkkonummen Salamat in Finland, where she has played since. Her signing with the Flyers was much-criticised as an attempt to cash in on the publicity the Canucks received for signing a similar contract with D. Sedin; her later tenure with the Oilers drew a similar amount of media criticism.  
[Notable clip](http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1832497845) of 15-year-old Wickenheiser.  
_Remarkable Quote_ : “People would say ‘girls don’t play hockey. Girls don’t skate.’ I would say, ‘ watch this.’” ([x](https://books.google.com/books?id=2nCBoLryMEoC&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12&dq=People+would+say+%E2%80%98girls+don%E2%80%99t+play+hockey.+Girls+don%E2%80%99t+skate.%E2%80%99+I+would+say,+%E2%80%98+watch+this.%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=9jv2Blqd5t&sig=AD_uR2aA7ZZ-jpoTPiLA3ynEviA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKtpC-7PbWAhWBcyYKHUEQBMQQ6AEITTAK#v=onepage&q=People%20would%20say%20%E2%80%98girls%20don%E2%80%99t%20play%20hockey.%20Girls%20don%E2%80%99t%20skate.%E2%80%99%20I%20would%20say%2C%20%E2%80%98%20watch%20this.%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D&f=false))

 **Sidney Crosby** , Draft Prospect

 _Position_ : Centre  
_QMJHL Team_ : Rimouski Océanic   
Impact on Hockey: First female player in the QMJHL; Crosby is widely regarded as the top prospect in the 2005 Draft, the first female player to be touted as such.  
_Quick Bio_ : Crosby grew up in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia; she began playing hockey young. Her skill was apparent from a young age, and she fought to be included in every league she has played in, including the QMJHL, where she plays for Rimouski. She is expected to be drafted within the top three, if not at number one.  
_Remarkable Quote_ : “I want to be the best, so whatever comes with that, I have to accept.” ([x](https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/sidneycros431335.html))

 **Carey Price** , Draft Prospect

 _Position_ : Goalie  
_WHL Team_ : Tri-city Americans  
_Impact on Hockey_ : First female player in the WHL; first female goaltender to represent Canada in the U17 Worlds.  
_Quick Bio_ : Price has so far posted 8 shutouts in her time with the Tri-City Americans, unprecedented for any Americans goalie thus far. She is expected to be drafted within the top 10.  
_Remarkable Quote_ : “So what if goalies are weird? So what if girls are weird? Weird works. Weird wins.”

 **Marcia Staal** , Draft Prospect

 _Position_ : Defenseman  
_OHL Team_ : Sudbury Wolves  
_Impact on Hockey_ : First female player in the OHL, first female captain in the minors, first female defenseman put forward for the draft.  
_Quick Bio_ : M. Staal has been speculated to receive a contract similar to D.Sedin’s if she isn't drafted; having grown up in a family of hockey players, it’s not surprising that her defense skills developed on par with her brothers’ offensive skills. M. Staal has spent her OHL career with the Sudbury Wolves and is expected to be drafted within the top 10.  
_Remarkable Quote_ : M. Staal hasn’t given any public interviews, but her older brother (Eric Staal, forward, Carolina Hurricanes) has commented on her skill as a defense player. Of his sister, E. Staal says, “Marcia can take care of herself on ice better than just about anyone I know. Worry about her [safety]? I’m worried she’ll end up on a team in my conference and I’ll have to play against her defense regularly.”

You can read E. Staal’s full interview here, including his perspective on Carey Price and Sidney Crosby in the draft. Interviews with H. Sedin about playing with his sister can be found here. And, of course, you can see the future of hockey for yourself at the 2005 NHL Entry Draft on July 22. Tune in on ESPN; only the top 20 prospects will personally be in attendance, but three of them are women. It'll be worthwhile watching.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Draft happens, and Marcia spends a her first year of marriage in Sudbury, Ontario.

#  **Two**

[Perfect Score](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CEQzfIz46o): _(you think it’s easier to let the madness pull you in/tonight there’s a fire inside you/so let the flames begin)_

2005 is the first year the draft is officially open to women. There are twelve of them who put themselves forward; three of them go first round, which Marcia thinks is the biggest fuck you they could have hoped for.

They’re not the first women in the NHL; Manon Rheaume paved that path. Danielle Sedin followed suit in 1999, though she was so often packaged with her twin brother they were often indistinguishable when the Canucks actually let her play; Hayley Wickenheiser came not far behind in 2003, though she never played a full season. None of the three women preceding the 2005 Draft them followed conventional paths to the NHL, because no one thought women at large were sturdy enough players. Hayley gave interviews claiming that NHL hockey was too rough for women to keep up with for a full season.

When they open the draft, Marcia’s life goes from busy to _insane_. She’s the most _normal_ of the women considered highly. Sid is more than likely to give brisk soundbites, nothing interesting, while Carey just smiles and comments on fellow goalies rather than fellow women. Marcia, though, is Eric’s sister. She’s a quantifiable factor. She's more approachable than media-trained Sid and deliberately bland Carey.

The responsibility to prove they’re not flukes falls on Marcia’s shoulders when Sidney and Carey are head and shoulders above any player on the planet, much less the league. Sidney and Carey are extraordinary. Marcia is _ordinary_ , and she won’t let anyone forget it.

Together, they are the first three drafted women in the NHL. Alone, she is the female Staal, a sign of changes to come in the NHL.

So Marcia lets Lindsay do her makeup, and she does her press in decidedly feminine clothing, silk blouses in pale pastels, carefully cut trousers, pumps even when her ankles ache from a tough turn on the ice. She wings her eyeliner where Carey foregoes it entirely and braids her hair into a tight crown where Sidney bobs it close to her chin. No matter how rough a game she plays, no matter how much she is one of the men on the ice, she is still Marcia Staal.

She hit the ground running the day she was born; from here on out, she’s doing it backwards and in heels. Ginger Rogers was always more badass than Fred Astaire, anyways.

Eat your heart out, Gary Bettman.

Marcia receives a lunch invitation from Danielle Sedin in much the way she assumes she’d receive a court summons: bluntly, and with no room given for wriggling out of it. It’s not that she doesn’t want to meet Danielle Sedin, but it’s also going to be the day after the draft and she assumes she’ll just want to sleep for a week.

She dithers about going, but Lindsay convinces her she has to go, no matter how crazy everything else is. When it comes time to meet up with the other women, Lindsay kisses Marcia on the cheek and wishes her well.

Marcia is the first to arrive in the lobby; she sits there and fiddles with her wedding ring. She knows she would look relatively nondescript if it weren’t for the fact that she’d been drafted last night; she’s somewhat relieved that the draft wasn’t as highly publicized this year because of the lockout.

“Hi, Marcia,” someone says behind her, and Marcia turns in her seat. It’s Danielle Sedin, with sunglasses pushed up on top of her head and an easy grace to her carriage. Her hair is loose, but she wears cleanly cut trousers and a sheer black blouse. Marcia suddenly feels shabby in her polo and jeans, her own hair pulled up into a messy bun.

“Hi, Mrs. Sedin,” Marcia says, somewhat awkwardly.

Sedin snorts indelicately. “If you call me Mrs. Sedin, I am actually going to take you out back and shoot you. It’s just Danielle. Dani, really. Besides, should I be calling you Ms. Staal?”

Marcia grimaces. “Good point.”

Sidney Crosby is the next to show up, after Marcia chats awkwardly with Sed-- _Dani_ for a few minutes. Marcia’s always been aware of Sidney, in that they received exceptional player status in the same year, and they had texted in the time coming up to the draft, but it’s still strange seeing Crosby in person.

Crosby is a full five inches shorter than Marcia, and three shorter than Dani. She’s compact in the way Dani and Marcia aren’t; her hair is dark and short where theirs is bright and long; and she looks nervous the way Marcia imagines she herself looks. She also looks like her mother dressed her, in a flowered sundress and cardigan. Marcia suddenly feels much better about her own choice of clothing.

“Hi,” Sidney says quietly, as if she didn’t make four kinds of history in the past twenty-four hours. Already, people are starting to dart glances at them. Marcia doesn’t know what to say, but Dani fills in the quiet between them with questions about their families. Sidney smiles at the mention of her younger sister, and Marcia can’t help but grin when thinking of the phone call she’d gotten the previous night from Thunder Bay, of the jumble of her brothers’ voices in their celebration.

Carey Price is the last to arrive. She all but sprints into the lobby, all long legs and flushed cheeks. Like Marcia, she wears a polo over jeans.

“Cab driver took me to the Marriott instead of the Sheraton,” she explains breathlessly, waving to the other women. “I had to run, like,  ten blocks.”

Carey is tall enough to look Marcia in the eye when Marcia stands to greet her; Marcia doesn’t think she’s been around this many tall women in her life. It’s both refreshing and intimidating at the same time.

“Well, that’s all of us,” Dani says, hugging Carey hello. “Come, there’s a place Henrik and I always go to when we’re in Ottawa, found it when there was nothing for a loss but dumplings.”

Dani drives, chatting quietly with Carey in the front. Marcia and Sidney look at each other, mostly a little awkwardly.

The place Dani takes them is a tiny little Polish deli across the river in Gatineau. They take up a round table tucked into a corner, all of them elbow to elbow. Sidney orders for them all in French. Marcia supposes that's what time in the Q will do for you. Dani chimes in with an eloquent addition, once Sidney has painstakingly ordered all four plates.

Marcia holds back a giggle when Sidney realizes that Dani speaks at least some French and pouts for a few seconds.

Once the waiter has disappeared into the back, no one speaks. Dani sighs. “We don’t have to like each other,” she says quietly. Across the deli, someone shouts out an order in Polish. “But we are the only women recognized as part of the NHL. This year will be a great change. There must be something we have in common.”

“Hockey,” Sidney says immediately. It’s not even a joke, coming from her.

“What it’s like being the only woman in your league,” Carey adds.

Marcia looks across the table and thinks: oh, that’s true. Dani alone as she bounced between the Swedish league and the NHL, with Carey in the W, Marcia in the O, and Sidney in the Q, each of them having clawed their way in, unsure of their foothold.

“Kicking ass,” she contributes. Dani snorts, and a bit of the tension eases.

“I’ve been in a domestic partnership since 2000, and got married four months ago, when it was finally fully legalized in Toronto,” Dani says, delicately buttering a slice of bread. “My wife works in childhood education.”

Marcia realizes that Dani is watching them carefully. Marcia is watching too; Sidney and Carey look unfazed. Sidney in particular looks more focused on stirring an exacting amount of sugar into her tea.

“I got married a month ago,” Marcia says. Sidney nearly drops her spoon; Carey actually does drop the slice of bread she was about to bite into. “My wife Lindsay is at the hotel now with my family.”

Dani raises a single eyebrow, and then nods at Marcia. “Remind me to pass along Marinette’s phone number, so the two of them can chat. Apparently being a hockey wife is quite strange.”

Carey quirks a smile. “I don’t think my boyfriend and I will make it that long. How about you, Sidney?”

Sidney shakes her head. “When would I have had time? I played hockey in the winter, and softball in the spring. Summers were for conditioning.”

Dani hums. “There's more to life than hockey, you know.”

“But is it worth it?” Sidney asks, and by the way she says it she’s not looking for an answer. “I made first overall. There's time, later.”

Marcia wants to argue. She has Lindsay, and she has hockey, and she can’t imagine it isn’t worth it. The thought of putting off love, of leaving Lindsay waiting, that stung.

She doesn’t say anything, because their food comes, and their mouths are too full to really communicate.

Between bites, Carey talks about her mother, about her community and the long trips she had to take just so she could play. Sidney lights up when they talk about sisters; Dani contributes stories about Henrik. Marcia chimes in about Staal Arena in the backyard, and Sidney sighs wistfully. Her sundress still looks ridiculous, but she looks more human now with gravy smudged at the corner of her mouth.

At the end of the lunch, Dani pulls a notepad out of her purse. Along the top, she writes _Phone Tree,_ and writes her phone number down, followed by an email address.

“Like a fire brigade,” she says, tearing the sheet out and copying onto another sheet. “Keep in touch with each other, bring up the girls we come in contact with. If they give you any trouble with your contracts, my agent is very good, and very willing to remind everyone about the wage gap. Don't let them undervalue your worth to your teams.”

Carey takes one of the slips of paper and puts her contact information down, her handwriting spiky in dark red. They pass the paper around the table, until everyone has a copy.

Dani produces three copies of a business card. “Here. He’s very good. If your agents are difficult, or if your teams are difficult, he can give pointers.”

Marcia looks around the table, at Dani’s soft smile, at Sidney’s determined nod, at Carey’s stubborn pout.

No one thought any of them would make it here. Too many people thought Dani was a waste of roster space, that Sidney was a fluke. The Canadiens had a solid goalie, so it might be awhile before Carey made it to the show, and Marcia herself knew she needed another year in Sudbury to become truly NHL ready. Wickenheiser hadn’t helped matters by claiming the NHL was too rough, and it wasn’t like teams had been clamouring to keep Rheaume around. They all had so much hanging on each others’ successes, and so much to lose if any one of them slipped up.

Still, she clutches the slip of paper in her hand and thinks about the changes they can make across the league.

She’s never had a sister before. She imagines this is what it must be like.

She attends rookie camp with the Rangers--God, with the _Rangers_ \--but she already knows what’s going to happen at the end of camp. She needs another year in Sudbury to bring her skills up to NHL speed, and to develop leadership skills as captain. Lindsay doesn’t come along, not when they know Marcia will just be exhausted.

So Marcia stays in a hotel with the other potential call-ups. She's the only one with her own room, and it's just a little lonely. The first night she tosses and turns until her alarm goes off.

She’d laid out her clothing the night before, and set her gear bag by the door. She pulls on a loose white blouse and black slacks, and finds her suit blazer in a dry-cleaning bag. Club rules required players to wear a tie, so she had bought a sapphire blue one shopping with Ma, immediately following her draft. Now, she carefully knots it around her throat. It’s a women's tie, so it’s skinnier than any that her brothers would wear, and it has an almost delicate air to it. She's half in love with the way it looks around her throat.

The front office staff had assured her the dress code didn't apply to women but they had yet to provide her a woman's dress code in its place. She'd follow the men's code then, play by the rules. They didn't need to give her exemptions based on her sex.

She lays her blazer on the bed and sets out her pumps, low and sturdy. Then she pads into the bathroom and sets about managing her hair. She hums to herself as she plaits it. Once it's braided, she coils it into a low bun and secures it with bobby pins and a generous amount of hairspray. It's one of three hairstyles she can reliably do, functional hairstyles that can easily withstand athletics.

There are whispers when she sweeps into the facility, her heavy gear bag slung over one shoulder and her leather purse hooked over her other elbow. The whispers only increase when they notice her suit and tie.

Coach greets her with a tilt of the head from where he's observing check-in.

“Making a statement already, Staal?” he asks.

Marcia meets his eyes and smiles. “What statement? There's a dress code, Coach.”

“Get out of here, Staal,” Coach says, but he's smiling.

She salutes and joins the rest of the rookies.

She spends the morning doing introductions with the other rookies and with the rest of their new teammates. They run through physicals and medical history with the training staff. They’re assigned lockers and changing stalls, have practice jerseys and numbers assigned. Marcia sees Staal silkscreened onto the back of her jersey with satisfaction; for most of her life, her initial has been added to distinguish her from her brothers. This is _her_ team; there is no other Staal she needs to be separated from.

The entire rookie class walks to lunch together. The men’s dress shoes make muted thumps on the concrete floors; Marcia’s pumps click satisfyingly.

At the cafeteria, a few of her new teammates dart curious glances at her full plate.

“I thought girls only ate salads?”

Marcia snorts indelicately. “I burn just as many calories as the rest of you. If I only ate salads, I'd pass out before we hit the ice.”

She gets pulled aside when everyone gets dressed out for their first on-ice run. She gets shown to the showers, to the area they've set up for her. It’s sort of in the communal shower, but someone has partitioned two shower heads off with a plastic shower curtain patterned with the Rangers logo.

“There are plans to put up a tiled wall so there's less mildew,” one of the facility staff tells her. “Sort of like the Canucks have set up for Danielle Sedin. The Penguins proposed model isn’t sustainable right now, not without serious renovation. This will be the road set-up, anyway.”

“And the two showers?”

The facility staffer shrugs. “You won’t always be the only female Ranger.”

The thought makes Marcia smile.

Training camp is brutal, just as she’d expected. At the end of the week, she’s summoned to the coach’s office. It’s awkward, but she comes out relieved. She’d only known the NHL was within her grasp for six months. The NHL plays different hockey than the NCAA game she’d been gearing up to play. She knows the Rangers want her. She’s not worried that they’ll leave her in Sudbury indefinitely. She went twelfth overall; they traded up to get her. So she’ll take her year in Sudbury and make sure they aren’t disappointed with their choice.

Lindsay and Marcia live in an apartment in Sudbury, a fourteen-hour drive from their family.  Marcia gets the C, has Jared billet with her. It’s unconventional to be sure, but Jared is sixteen to Marcia’s nineteen; it’s easier for family to stick together. She lets him bask in having his own room for the first time, and she herself relishes sharing with Lindsay. She loves having her wife and her brother with her when the rest of their family is so far away. Jordan is in Peterborough, another four hours east beyond them; Eric is in North Carolina, and Lindsay’s family is home in Thunder Bay.

They make their own little family in Sudbury, then.

Marcia is captain; she has no shortage of newbies texting her for advice and vets texting her just to give her shit. There’s always someone on their couch, be it one of Jared’s school buddies or one of their teammates. Her d-partner Adam McQuaid is one of the more obnoxious texters, but it never fails to make her laugh. He finds it hilarious that everyone uses both of his names at all times, even though last year’s Adam isn’t on the team anymore.

It results in mornings where Jared scrambles off to school with a smear of oatmeal on his cheek, and Marcia stares at the chaos of their apartment with apprehension, especially when Lindsay is sprinting out the door to get to her classes on time.

Lindsay had chosen to enroll in Cambrian College since they have a transfer agreement with universities in the US, and New York City in particular. She begins work on a degree in community and justice services, focusing on juveniles and youth. Marcia doesn’t understand half of what Lindsay is studying, but she makes an effort. She takes on of Lindsay’s textbooks along on a long bus ride across Ontario and comes out convinced that the US prison system is deeply fucked up.

Sweetly, Lindsay starts learning Dutch in earnest. Jared and Marcia speak to each other almost exclusively in Dutch, and Lindsay is determined to learn. It’s hilarious to hear Lindsay fumbling her vowels and mangling her tenses. Less hilarious is the first time Lindsay correctly tells Marcia she loves her.

“ _Ik hou van je,”_ Marcia corrects, emphasizing the correct vowels. Lindsay kept pronouncing her Js the way English did, harsh and percussive. “Soft Js, like a Y sound. The same sound as _yay_. You were getting it earlier!”

Lindsay tries again and just barely misses it. They go back and forth as they settle in on the couch for date night, Marcia getting up to put a DVD in the player. Marcia had kicked Jared out for the evening, sending him over to study with some school friends. More often than not, he spent the night at a friends’ after a long study session, during which Marcia was convinced very little studying actually took place.

When Lindsay finally gets it right, Marcia rewards her with a kiss. Lindsay kisses back slow and sweet before repeating herself over and over again until the words no longer sounded like anything until Marcia gets a case of the giggles and has to be kissed until she shuts up.

The DVD menu is looping behind them, so when they break apart Lindsay grabs for the remote. Marcia slumps back against the couch; Lindsay curls up against Marcia’s side and laces their fingers together.

She doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but Lindsay is a warm, welcome weight and Marcia finds herself drifting off as Lindsay rubs her thumb over Marcia’s knuckles. She slips into sleep with Lindsay half in her lap and Peter Pevensie shouting at Edmund in the background.

Lindsay gives her shit for falling asleep during date night. Marcia makes it up to her, because she’s a fucking romantic, alright? She’s just also all kinds of exhausted from hauling her team to the Memorial Cup finals by their hair.

[Alaina Valiquette](https://villagemedia.blob.core.windows.net/files/sudbury/uploadedImages/news/sports/2011/04/110411_SH_Wolves_32.jpg) is the youngest of the Wolves at fifteen, beating Jared to the title by exactly four months; more importantly, Alaina is the first girl to be drafted by the Wolves after Marcia herself. She doesn’t billet with the Staals, but she’s over often enough that she might as well. She’s a Sudbury native, so she lives with her parents and attends school with Jared.The Valiquette family live nearby enough that mixed potluck dinners with the Staals become a staple of their week. It’s not uncommon for Marcia’s billet family to join them, with four rowdy hockey girls and a handful of the Wolves boys. 

More than once it’s broken out into ball hockey games. More than once Marcia has gotten to watch Lindsay nearly wipe out everyone on her team by accident. It’s kind of the best thing ever.

Lindsay keeps a running score in a spreadsheet on her laptop. Marcia keeps a running tally of bets in a spiral notebook. She wins enough to take Lindsay out to dinner exactly once before Lindsay finds out and demands they cut Alaina in.

Alaina latches onto Marcia; they’re road roommates as the Wolves’ only women. Marcia Sharpies _wolf bitch_ on Alaina’s wrist before games. Alaina returns the favor. It's the most common insult whipped at them, besides more generic cracks about their sex appeal and periods. Lindsay adores Alaina, who is not quite sure how she wants to react to Lindsay.

Jared has a vague crush on Alaina, Marcia knows. Neither of them say anything about it, and Jared would never say anything about crushing on a teammate. It’s one of those things that makes her grateful for her time in Sudbury: her brother likes girls who stand as tall as he does, who could more than hold their own.

It’s life. Marcia’s getting media attention as the first female captain in the minors. She’s always asked about how Sidney is tearing it up in her first NHL season, which will never not be weird. Getting asked, she means, not about how good Sidney is. Marcia isn’t close with Sidney; she texts Carey a lot and understands that Sidney and Dani text each other. It’s not something they really acknowledge, but they’re both closely following Sidney’s rookie season. They both know their call-ups depend on Sidney being good for the Penguins and the NHL as a whole, good enough for their own teams to be willing to take that chance on them.

Usually, Marcia’s texts with Carey are stupid stuff: photos of Lindsay and Jared equally zombie-like in the kitchen during finals week, Carey bitching about her commute, the both of them trading tips on shutting down the assholes they come up against on the ice. There’s one particularly memorable conversation where Carey discovers menstrual cups and _loses her shit_. Marcia has always liked goalies, and she likes passing along Carey’s cryptic advice to Alaina. It’s hilarious to watch Alaina lose it over every bit of advice Carey sends her way.

It’s equally gratifying to realize Alaina is so excited because Marcia and Carey are among the first to be drafted, that they genuinely are something to be excited about.

It becomes habit to text Carey on long bus rides across Ontario. Marcia’s captainly duties are generally quickly dispensed, and a phone call to Ma checking in on Jordan and Eric doesn’t usually take much longer.

She leaves Alaina with the goalies, makes sure Jared isn’t taking their loss too hard, and then falls into her own seat with relief. She’d snagged an empty pair of seats for herself, since someone inevitably wanted to sit with her and talk. When she checks her phone, she has a text from Carey, on her own obnoxiously long ride across the US-Canada border.

Neither Marcia nor Carey are in the best mood, coming off of losses. Carey had admitted she’d felt off her A game earlier, so she was almost definitely blaming herself for the Tri-City Americans’ loss; as Captain, Marcia feels the pressure of wins and losses keenly.

 **PRICEY** (6:16 PM): u ever wonder if they’re gonna call us up

 **MARCI** (6:42 PM): fucking course they will  
**MARCI** (6:42 PM): we went first round and sid is kicking ass  
**MARCI** (6:43 PM): it’ll be their fucking fault if they don’t take us

 **PRICEY** (6:44 PM): i hate being a token

 **MARCI** (6:45 PM): lol i have alaina

Shouting from the back of the bus draws Marcia’s attention. With a sigh, she heaves herself up.

From what she can hear, someone is cracking crude jokes, and a couple of other people are taking offense. Weirdly, she realizes Jared is one of them.

She realizes why when she catches the tail end of a rape joke directed at herself and Alaina. Unsurprisingly, Alaina is shrunk back in her seat, with Jared in between her and the guy making the jokes. Disappointingly, it's one of her baby D-corps.

Jared sits down when he sees Marcia coming. The baby defenseman, however, has his back to Marcia and _just keeps going_. This joke seems to be about all the dick they must have sucked to get on the team; he only seems to notice something is wrong when his buddies don't laugh.

“Oh, are we making jokes?” Marcia asks, and the boy whirls, looking horrified. Behind him, Adam McQuaid hides a grin behind his hand, knowing what’s coming. “Oh, no, please finish. You were making them earlier and everyone else seemed to find them funny. I'd love to hear one.”

When he remains silent, she raises an eyebrow at him. She can hear Coach and a couple of the As getting up and coming down the aisle, but she's got this handled without their help.

“Guess they weren't so funny after all.” She pauses and holds eye contact. “I'm not here to ruin your fun. I'd really rather be sitting up front and reading a book. You wanna chirp me for it, go ahead; I'm not gonna stop you.”

He mumbles something.

“I’m not your mom,” she says coolly, and is gratified to see him flush with embarrassment. “I’m also not your girlfriend, not your bitch, and definitely not your whore. What I _am_ is your captain, and you’re not going to get away with disrespecting me because I have a cunt in place of a dick.”

The entire bus is watching her now. She can see Alaina and Jared exchanging glances, but she _so_ doesn’t care right now.

“If you have an issue with me, say it to my face. Chirp me about my skating, fine. Think my defensive capabilities are shit, fine. They’re not, but fine. But think about what’s so fucking hilarious about threatening rape before you make a joke like that at me or Alaina, or before you laugh at one. Get your act together and start hoping I forget about this before I recommend bag skates at practice tomorrow.”

He stammers an apology; she holds up her hand to stop him.

“Save it. If you don’t mean it, I don’t want to hear it.” She takes a step back. “For all you newbies, think about why you're so pissed off you’ve got a girl for a captain. If it’s because of how I play; fine, be peeved off. But if it’s because I'm a girl, get your shit in order. We’ve got Memorial Cup finals to get to, and we will get there if I have to drag your asses by your nonexistent chest hair, and if my gender is gonna be a hangup for you, we’re gonna address that shit right now. Questions?”

No one says anything, but Alaina and Jared slink up to the front of the bus and bogart the seats immediately behind her. Marcia spends a good ten minutes talking first to them and then to Coach, because an incident like that is going to have to go on record.

When Marcia finally looks at her phone again, she has five texts from Carey, whose opinions on sending multiple text messages are that you should have answered your phone the first time she messaged.

 **PRICEY** (6:49 PM): no fucking fair you get the baby goalie  
**PRICEY** (6:51 PM): you’re the only girl playing with another girl did you realize  
**PRICEY** (7:01 PM): but it’s like the canadiens have that tandem thing going  
**PRICEY** (7:07 PM): i guess at least goalies have precedent  
**PRICEY** (7:08 PM): we had rheaume  
**PRICEY** (7:23 PM): they wouldn’t call up halak before me y/y??

 **MARCI** (7:37 PM): sorry had to put the fear of god into the dcorps  
**MARCI** (7:37 PM) he’s...older?

 **PRICEY** (7:38 PM): gonna get the fucking del wilson swear to fucking god

 **MARCI** (7:40 PM): memmer’s mine tho

 **PRICEY** (7:41 PM): over my dead body  
**PRICEY** (7:58: You think sid feels like us

 **MARCI** (8:01 PM): idefk i never text her

 **PRICEY** (8:06 PM): i bet it's worse. Future of a franchise. Pens aren’t going to win the cup this year, she’s got to be feeling that.

 **MARCI** (8:07 PM): if she is she hasn't said to me but also neither has dani

 **PRICEY** (8:08 PM): soooooo whats your mem cup strategy looking like

 **MARCI** (8:09 PM): kicking your ass  
**MARCI** (8:09 PM): nice try lol

Marcia is the first female OHL captain, and she takes her Wolves to the finals because _fuck_ everyone’s expectations of her. The Wolves haven’t made it to the finals in 30 years, and Marcia plans on breaking that streak with a vengeance.

Alaina curls up on Marcia’s bed the night before their first game of the tournament. It’s not likely Alaina is going to play, not given her age and Dahm’s skill level. Marica fully expects Alaina to rise to the Wolves’ primary goalie--when she’s not sixteen years old. For now, she appreciates having a roommate so she’s not left alone with her nerves.

“You think we’ll win?” Alaina asks. It’s the first time Alaina has brought up their chances in the playoffs, despite the multi-hour bus rides and the fact that no one on the team has really been able to talk about anything else.

“Hope so.” Marcia settles onto the bed behind Alaina. “Want me to braid your hair?”

“Like yours, please.”

Alaina’s hair is long, dark blonde, and wavy. Marcia takes Alaina’s brush and gently undoes a few snarls leftover from Alaina’s shower.

“Are we gossiping about cute boys?” Marcia asks, getting the underside of Alaina’s hair.

Alaina snorts. “I’ll pass. Besides--you haven’t got a cute boy.”

“Nope, I’ve got a Lindsay.”

“I want a Lindsay.”

“Really?”

“Mm. Maybe. Maybe a boy Lindsay.” Alaina sighs. “How do you know what you want, like. Enough to get married? I barely know what I want to do for college.”

Marcia starts separating Alaina’s hair into segments. “Hm. I don’t know if I'm the best to ask.”

“But you’re _married_.”

“That was more luck than anything. I grew up with Lindsay, and when we started dating--we wanted it to work. I think falling in love young is a dumb idea, and then I did it.”

Alaina hums. “You never dated anyone else?”

“Never really wanted to. But I really thought we were going to break up when I got drafted to Sudbury, but Lindsay basically convinced me I was worth working through. She’s it for me, and...there’s not a lot of girls like her out there. Not a lot of boys like that, either.”

“You think I'll find one?”

Marcia pauses in her plaiting. “Yeah, of course. Maybe not now, and maybe not any of the guys on the Wolves, which--if you do, that might not be a great idea--but there are good guys out there. Sucky ones, too. When you find someone who makes you feel like your team has your back, and like you've made the best save of your life, and someone you want to tell everything, that’s a place to start.”

“And then?”

“And then you work at it. Lindsay is my best friend, and she loves how much I love hockey. I love how intense she gets about school and bad comedy movies, and we talk and we plan, and from there we keep working to make it work.”

Alaina nods, and Marcia keeps working at the braid.

“Thank you,” Alaina says. “I've never had a big sister.”

Marcia ties off the braid with a blue elastic. “Well, I should be thanking you. I've never had a little sister.”

Carey and Marcia only manage to meet up after a disappointing few days. Carey’s already been eliminated, the Tri-City Americans getting knocked out in the quarterfinals. They both know the media is disappointed, looking forward to yet another round of pitting them against each other.

Marcia’s mostly just glad to have a friendly face that she isn’t playing with or related to or (as demonstrated by Jared) both.

“If you don't try to murder them, are they really your team?” Marcia asks, her head down on the table.

Carey takes advantage of Marcia’s despair by stealing her latte.

“You could start with Jared, but I get custody of Alaina when you go to jail for murder.”

“Alaina’s parents get custody of Alaina, I think.” Marcia pushes herself up and sees Carey halfway done with Marcia’s drink. “Oh my god, get your _own_.”

“I have _lost_ and now you're bitching at me,” Carey says primly and takes another long pull. She ends up with a latte foam mustache. “I hope you know we’re not good enough friends for me to help you bury bodies for free.”

“You’re fishing for coffee.”

“Large mocha with extra whipped cream, thanks.” Carey toasts Marcia with the now-empty porcelain cup. “You might wanna get yourself another latte, too.”

Marcia heaves herself up to fetch Carey a coffee.

Alaina clings to Marcia after their loss. More surprisingly, so does Jared, who’s taken to distancing himself from his older sister. In fact, almost the entire youngest third of the Wolves piles into Marcia’s hotel room for post-loss cuddles. It’s late, and they’re all hurting; most of the guys who are old enough to drink are out drinking as much as they can get away with.

Marcia would honestly love to be among them, but she’s also got a pile of sixteen-year-olds who are homesick and hurting. She puts on the Mighty Ducks and lets teenage boys sprawl out over her legs while she ignores her phone.

Adam McQuaid joins them after a couple of hours when Marcia’s phone has finally started buzzing a few million less times per hour.

Alaina is curled into Marcia's side, whispering to Jared across Marcia's chest. They're definitely holding hands. Marcia is not drunk enough for this nonsense.

She falls asleep in that pile and wakes to her phone nearly vibrating off the bedside table at an ungodly hour.

 **DANI SEDIN** (11:11 PM): bad luck, babe

 **PRICEY** (11:16 PM): half off my murder rate, just for you  
**PRICEY** (11:17 PM): burial rate still full price though

**[1 MISSED CALL FROM PRICEY]**

**[1 MISSED CALL FROM SIDNEY CROSBY]**

**SIDNEY CROSBY** (11:48 PM): want to call?  
**SIDNEY CROSBY** (11:51 PM): you’re probably with your family sorry  
**SIDNEY CROSBY** (12:16 AM): you’re not dying though right

**[4 MISSED CALLS FROM JORDAN STAAL]**

**JORDAN** (4:22 AM): is it normal to cry at the draft

**[2 MISSED CALLS FROM JORDAN STAAL]**

**MARCI** (7:31 AM): fucking hell who died i am grieving you ASSHOLE  
**MARCI** (7:31 AM): ask eric if you’re so worried

 **JORDAN** (7:32 AM) he just laughed at me

 **MARCI** (7:35 AM): i got drafted in a lockout year lol  
**MARCI** (7:36 AM): My experience was not normal

 **JORDAN** (7:37 AM)  fuuuuuuck

 **MARCI** (7:52 AM): my thoughts exactly but good to see you becoming self aware

 

Marcia is surprised to get an invitation from Sidney as her season comes to an abrupt, painful end. She's been busy dragging her Wolves to the Memorial Cup finals and then fucking _losing_ in the finals while Sidney’s been busy losing Lemieux as her captain and her team finishing last in their conference.

It’s not the best month for either of them. Marcia shouts at Sidney a little bit over the phone, only to get a disappointed phone call from Dani and a raised eyebrow from Lindsay.

So that’s how Lindsay and Marcia decide to spend a few weeks in Cole Harbour. Marcia has opinions about Halifax, and they’re not great.

Sidney greets them at the airport, wearing a ballcap and frankly ridiculous jeans.

“We could’ve taken a cab,” Marcia says. Lindsay elbows her, and opens her arms to Sidney for a hug.

Sidney accepts it, shoulders tense; Marcia only offers a handshake, which Sidney takes gratefully. “Come on, my mom is excited to feed people, and Taylor’s going to use you as a jungle gym.”

“She plays...goalie, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s also nine.” Sidney smiles, a wide thing that reveals a set of slightly crooked teeth. “She’s so excited for Carey to come.”

“I imagine. Think I could sway her to d-men?”

Sidney shrugs.

It takes 24 hours, but all four NHL women manage to congregate in Sidney’s house. Lindsay and Marinette have a reservation at a B&B in Cole Harbour proper, but Marcia and Carey make themselves at home on an air mattress in Sidney’s room. Dani, as the eldest, claimed the sole guest bedroom; Sidney is ostensibly bunking in with her younger sister, though she ends up sprawled out on her own bed quite quickly.

They train together, for awhile. Dani is going back to Sweden soon, but they trade tips and get some ice time in for drills.

Marcia has never played with this many women, not since she was a little kid. They play a 2 v 2, an offense versus defense, NHL players versus upcoming rookies. Marcia gets to try checking Sidney, which is both insanely fun and obnoxiously difficult.

Dani is smug when she explains why, some physics explanation that mostly goes over Marcia's head. Something about centers of gravity.

It’s an enlightening week. Marcia finally understands why Sidney is so good at staying on her feet despite being solidly outweighed by every guy on her team. Dani breaks down a few exercises for them that she’s developed with the Canucks and Henrik respectively, and Marcia can see exactly how that’s going to slot into her summer exercise routine.

Carey runs a lot. Marcia is the only one of their little quartet that enjoys running half as much as Carey, and even then she’s not quite as practiced as Carey is.

It’s a good, quiet two weeks.

“I think it went well,” Sidney says when she’s seeing them all off at the airport. Carey is nose-deep in her oversized coffee. Marcia is very sure she’s going to regret that an hour into her flight up north; she’s seen those tiny planes, and she’s not convinced there’s an onboard toilet. Lindsay is digging through the magazine stand outside security, making increasingly unimpressed faces at the covers.

Sidney has a half-smile on her face. “I’m glad you guys came.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. There’s a trainer on the Pens who specializes in women’s physiology, but...it gets kinda lonely.”

Marcia hums and slings an arm around Sidney’s shoulder. Two weeks ago, Sidney would have flinched away. Carey burrows her way into the hug, crushing Sidney between herself and Marcia. There are people whispering around them, and at least one person who’s gotten a photo.

“Next year, Thunder Bay,” Marcia says, and watches the smile blossom on Sidney’s face.

The rest of their summer goes. It’s languid at home, especially with Eric staying in Carolina and Jordy bouncing between Pittsburgh and Thunder Bay. Lindsay’s brothers are taking a road trip, no sisters invited, so they split time with Lindsay’s parents and with Jared. Summer is busy season on the farm, but Marcia is no longer obliged to work. She still ends up driving the tractor, though.

Jared misses Alaina; they call each other best friends, and he always asks if Alaina has texted Marcia. She’s not totally convinced there isn’t something there, but she’s glad the two of them will be friends when she’s gone.

She gets a call in late July from the Rangers front office, from an unflappable woman who is the player liaison. Marcia isn’t quite sure what the woman does, and she’s not entirely inclined to ask. Most of it is generally promising--it seems unlikely that they’ll send her back to Sudbury, enough that they’re telling her to look for a place to stay, long-term.

The big issue they want to discuss is Lindsay.

Marcia has to hand it to them: they’re not retiring or rude about the issue, which is apparently twofold: one, rookies aren’t usually married, and two, they're generally the same gender as the rest of the team.

“We were already concerned about placing you in a billet; having you live with another player would invite rumors but not placing you would make it seem like we were singling you out for your gender. Your spouse complicates things further since you’re going to come as a set. I’m assuming she won’t be staying in Canada for the season?”

“She’s planning on attending CUNY.”

“Hm,” the HR director says, voice crackling over the speaker. “We were thinking that we find you an apartment in the same complex--preferably the same building--as another player. We prefer billets to help you settle and diffuse real estate costs, but this might be easier with regards to your spouse.”

“Sidney is billeting with Lemieux,” Marcia cuts in, even though this is the third iteration of this conversation. “That’s not--”

“Crosby isn’t married,” the liaison counters. “But you’re still younger than players who live on their own.”

“This is a bit of a new situation for us,” adds the HR director.

“Because I’m married?”

“Because you’re married, you’re a girl, you’re a gay...so many complicating factors here, Ms. Staal.” The liaison breathes out a long sigh. “The Sedins have been helpful, but it’s not like you have a brother on the team for you to conveniently live with.”

Marcia can feel her nose wrinkling. “I won’t apologize.”

“Good. Don’t. Just know it’s complicated a few different ways from the boys. We don’t get enough challenges in housing.”

When Marcia hangs up, she has a headache and an address.

Two weeks later, a mass email goes out to everyone on the Rangers, informing them that Jagr will be named captain, please keep it quiet until the press conference. That gives Marcia a headache too, but not an angry one. More of a stress one from realizing she’s playing with Jaromir Jagr.

Her first NHL captain is Jaromir Jagr. She’s a contemporary of the first woman drafted. She’s the first woman to play defense in the NHL. Her head spins when she thinks about it, so mostly she doesn’t.

Dani starts cc’ing her on an enormous amount of emails. Her agent gets in on it, which means Marcia’s agent gets in on it, and at that point Marcia gives her email inbox up for a loss. It’s all things to do with recognition of same-sex spouses and their insurance benefits. There’s are drafts of legal briefings and legal precedents, contract clauses, hardline conditions. There’s even a whole chain dissecting the Canucks’ morality clause that spins off into something involving every woman who’d ever played NHL hockey, their agents, and at least two other lawyers.

Marcia knows this is Dani trying to be helpful. The two of them have so much in common, and Dani doesn’t want Marcia to fight battles which have already been won.

It’s just a lot of input all at once, especially when Dani drops in the fact that Marinette is pregnant, and suddenly there are baby showers on Marcia’s schedule.

Marinette tries to long-distance adopt Marcia and Lindsay, which Marcia chalks up to pregnancy nesting instincts or something. She has enough moms as it is, between Ma and Mama Ruggles and her billet mom; she doesn’t need to be adopted by the Sedins as well.

The rest of the summer passes too quickly in training with Jared. Soon enough, it’s time to head out to New York.

Their mothers fly out with them, planning to spend a week. The apartment they were going to live in is mostly furnished but lacks personal touches. Ma and Mama decide the solution is to buy out Ikea, and plan a further trip to every boutique interior decoration store in the greater New York area.

Ikea is what Marcia imagines Swedish hell must look like. Lindsay has opinions on everything from throw pillows to kitchen utensils. Marcia mostly wants to leave the store alive, and without a third cart.

“We need to get blackout curtains for both bedrooms,” Lindsay says firmly, as Marcia edges slowly towards the cash register. “And we need lamps.”

Marcia looks at the six different lamps in her cart. “We do not need more lamps.”

“Unless you want to live in the _dark--_ ”

“Do you not see the lamps _I already have_?”

Lindsay pauses and turns to stare. “Oh. Do we have light bulbs?”

“I’m making the executive decision to take us home now.

Marcia got them through checkout, surreptitiously making sure Lindsay's pulse didn't skyrocket. She held Lindsay's hand and kept their palms pressed together.

“Moving in with your sister?” the cashier asks. “That’s sweet. I wish I was so close with my sister.”

Marcia smiles, signs the credit card slip, and pulls Lindsay away before Lindsay jumps the counter and fights the cashier.

“We’re never coming here ever again,” she says flatly, pushing one cart with one hand and towing Lindsay’s with the other. “I don’t like what this power does to you.”

“Says the woman who plays professional hockey for a living?” Lindsay spins on her heel. “Wait, did we get--”

“Nope, we’re going now.”

They end up at the animal shelter, because Lindsay has always wanted a cat and she’s convinced the apartment will feel lonely without Jared billeting and with Marcia often gone.

“This is Egg,” Lindsay says, patting at the head of a black and white spotted cat. It is, admittedly, a very cute cat. “Marcia?”

“Egg is coming home with us, isn’t she?” Marcia asks, but it’s not a question. She folds herself to sit at near eye-level with the cat.

“Yeah.”

Egg looks very comfortable in Lindsay’s lap. Her eyes are just barely open and she’s purring loudly.

“We changing her name?”

Lindsay glares. Marcia already knows Lindsay’s opinion on changing an animal’s name.

“Egg McMuffin is beautiful the way she is,” Lindsay says primly, and Marcia cracks up.

Lindsay spins in the newly unpacked living room.

“God, can you believe this is ours?” she asks, laughing a little. “Marcia, this is our _home_.”

“Tell that to the fifteen bags of kitchen stuff my mom got today.”

Lindsay rolls her eyes. “We have our own bedroom, our own kitchen, our own sofa. No more living in the granny suite above your parent's house. No Jared down the hall in fucking _Sudbury_.”

“We're literally right next door to my captain,” Marcia warns, but Lindsay's joy is contagious. She grabs Lindsay's hand and twirls her under her arm. “Our moms are at their hotel room. What do you want to do tonight?”

“There's a lesbian bar not far from here,” Lindsay says. “Looked it up on the internet and everything.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. [Henrietta Hudson](http://henriettahudson.com/about/). Wanna go make some friends?”

There are not a lot of openly gay couples in Thunder Bay, Ontario. No matter that Ontario was the first place to legalize gay marriage in Canada; Marcia could count her queer friends from Thunder Bay on one hand.

Henrietta Hudson is, in that vein, nothing like anywhere Marcia has been before. It’s a bar, and Marcia has been to more than a few of those, in almost every city the Wolves managed to visit. But here, there are women openly flirting with each other, dancing with each other. Marcia feels like no one even bats an eye at Lindsay’s hand in hers, and it’s refreshing.

Her life is starting here, out of the bounds of Ontario. She has her team and her wife; there’s a space for her that she hasn’t had to claw out, bloody-handed.

They order at the bar, something with gin for Lindsay and the lewdest-sounding drink on the menu for Marcia. While they wait, Lindsay curls into Marcia’s side and breathes deeply.

The bartender--Janelle by her nametag--slides their drinks across the bar and leans forward. “Never seen you two around here before. Visitors? Tourists?”

“Newly moved to the city,” Lindsay says. Her palm is flat against Marcia’s, cool and reassuring. “Nowhere like this where we’re from.”

“And where’s that?”

“Middle of nowhere, Canada.”

“Shit, you can get married there. Why come here?”

“Work,” Marcia says. No one here seems to realize she’s a professional athlete; she’s not sure if she was expecting to be recognized or not. “And we’re already married.”

“Well then, sounds like you ladies have life pretty figured out.”

Lindsay bumps her shoulder into Marcia’s. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“We have football watch parties and dry events too,” Janelle suggests. “And couples nights. See you ladies then?”

Lindsay’s grin is wide, almost shark-toothed. “Oh, absolutely.”

They stay out late, getting progressively more tipsy. By the time they leave, Lindsay has gotten four phone numbers, a lunch date with another lesbian couple, and promised to join a lesbian book club. She’s also picked up a flyer for the Gay and Lesbian Marching Band in addition to a hickey or six from Marcia.

“That was not what I expected when you said we were going to a lesbian bar,” Marcia says. “Jesus, Lindsay.”

Lindsay bats her lashes up at Marcia. She’s thumbing through her phone with the hand not tucked into Marcia’s back pocket. “Community building,” she chirps. “You’ve got your team, but there’s life outside hockey. I’m joining the CUNY GSA too.”

“You’re _scheming_ ,” Marcia accuses. “Lindsay Staal, schemer.”

“Lindsay Staal, putting down roots.” She sighs and puts her phone away. “This is going to be home indefinitely. Let’s get comfortable.”

On the subway home, Lindsay sits in Marcia’s lap and they exchange lazy kisses. They barely get a sideways glance. They make out against the ticket machine on the way back, not wanting to wait the five minutes it’ll take them to walk to their building. They break apart when a gaggle of teenagers clearly rushing to get in before curfew thunder by them.

They hold hands on the way home, stopping for kisses. They almost miss the elevator, wrapped up in each other.

Lindsay gets their door unlocked and immediately strips out of her dress, dropping her purse right in the entry hall. She strips down to her underwear casually, leaving her long hair loose and her lipstick smudged, and claims one of Marcia’s team t-shirts to sleep in. Marcia shimmies out of her jeans and blouse but doesn’t bother reaching for pyjamas.

This is Marcia’s life, and she can barely believe it. She goes to training camp in 3 days, and she gets to go to bed with her wife in an apartment just outside of New York. She doesn’t know how she got this lucky, and she doesn’t know how long her term with the Rangers will last, but this is already so much more than she’d dreamed of.

**r/hockey**  
 **u/deadasadaisy** • 3h  
ELI5: what are the odds of the nhl women staying up/more women joining the nhl?  
My dad and brother are lifelong flyers fans, but i never really cared about the NHL until a couple of women started playing full time. Obv I want to root for the flyers but they don’t have any women, so what are the odds they’ll draft a woman? And until then, what teams are likely to keep their women around? I can’t root for the penguins (my brother wouldn’t speak to me for like a week when i even suggested it) but i don’t know much about what other women are kicking around the league. There aren’t any professional womens’ teams in philly either so if you have recs for those, i’d love some.

**[Best Comments]**

**u/project636  • 3h  
** The canucks are prob gonna be pretty stable if you want a long term team. Danielle Sedin didn’t want to play apart from her twin brother and considering the way their line kicked ass last season I’m pretty sure she’ll be a roster fixture from now on.

 **u/draftpunk  • 3h  
           **Danielle sedin is hot like fire also

 **u/sinnybinnyginny • 2h  
                   **It took them like 6 years to actually play her tho

         [2 more replies]

 **u/wonthetrade • 3h  
** They’re setting up Crosby as the face of the franchise in Pittsburgh, so she’s not going anywhere

 **u/deadasadaisy • 3h  
             **but...pittsburgh.

 **u/gravityinglass • 3h  
** Staal is looking pretty good with the Rangers, and it’s not like there’s much of an existing system for her to fit into anyways

 **u/wutdapuck17 • 3h  
             **They’ll probably trade her like they traded everyone else lol

 **u/gravityinglass • 3h  
                    **Spot the islanders fan

 **u/wutdapuck17 • 2h**  
                           Carolina, actually  
                           There was talk she’d come here and play with E Staal

 **u/gravityinglass • 2h  
**                                    Want some of that sibling action? Didn’t j staal just get drafted to pittsburgh? Maybe they’ll trade her there, get two women on the same team and siblings playing together. Be great for media, anyways.

 **u/deadasadaisy • 1h**  
                                  Ugh, Pittsburgh  
                                  [collapse thread]

             [3 more replies]

 **u/froggomcdoggo • 2h  
** Who cares they won’t last more than 5 years in the league anyways. Women aren’t strong enough to play in the NHL, Sedin and Crosby are flukes

            **u/wutdapuck17** **• 2h  
           **Oh my god spot the troll

                        [9 more replies]

 **u/wonthetrade • 2h  
**            I dunno, Staal seems like she’s got it pretty handled, and there’s something like a dozen women in juniors right now, all of them could be call ups. I think the game’s gonna change, start formatting more diverse styles of play

 **u/froggomcdoggo • 2h**  
                   Dmen need to be strong and the rangers got marcia staal? I hope she flunks out of training camp

 **u/wonthetrade • 1h  
**                                She’s got an aggressivity no one else does though. People who have shit to prove play better. And her OHL season wasn’t bad

                                [14 more replies]

            **u/pickpuck1988** **• 2h**  
            You’ve got a point, like. Women are just biolgically different from men.  
                        [12 more replies]

            **u/limondi • 1h  
           ** _Comment removed_

 **u/gravityinglass • 1h**  
                   DUDE

 **u/hotlikefire • 1h  
           ** _Comment removed_

[8 more replies]

[36 more replies]

 

 


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marcia's time with the Rangers begins.

#  **Three**

[Off With Her Head](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w4JGHB2o6I) _: (how long until it starts to do me in/I can’t give out what I’m not breathing in)_

Everyone expects Marcia to be close with Eric, and she _is_. It’s just that Eric is always forging ahead while Marcia picks her way along behind him, and that’s never lent itself to any particular closeness.

When she was little, Marcia had never particularly wanted to play hockey, but she wanted to play with Eric, especially with Jared and Jordan as screamy little toddlers. She wanted to do tumbling, wear sparkling leotards and twist her hair up into a ballet bun. Eric skulked along to these practices, she remembers. They both learned how to fall without hurting themselves, a limp and elegant twist that protects fragile bones. In a few years, Jordan and Jared will take the same class, though not for the same reasons. She goes to be graceful; they go to learn how to fall.

In exchange for tumbling, Mom and Dad take her to hockey practices with Eric. There she takes to defense like a duck to water. There's no question about what sport she’ll play after that, not when she’s got skates under her and a stick in her gloves.

Maybe it's the fact that Marcia has never in her life given an inch she didn't want to give. She's pleased with her lot, all told; she loves her goalies and defends her territory rather than pushing into someone else's. She works best with a partner, keeping an eye forward to their teammates but knowing her partner is keeping an eye behind. Her checks are fast, physical and clean. Her lower center of gravity makes her hard to knock her off her feet. She’s good at the game, and there's nothing she’d rather do.

There's something about playing the blue line that she can't explain, not when her brothers all play forward. It's not because she's safer there. After all, she earns the same amount of penalty minutes as her brothers, on average. She skates hard and lays her opponents out on their asses on ice, gets used to the casual threats, and laughs when their smugness bleeds into frustration and rage. Angry people make dumb mistakes, and it makes her job a hell of a lot easier. It also makes her day a lot more fun.

Eric will never get that. He will never understand the way she has to claw her way into being respected; he will never understand her flashy smile when someone threatens her on ice. A threat against his baby sister will get him to drop gloves if it’s explicit enough. That same threat will just make Marcia laugh because if she takes them seriously, they’ll do it more.

Eric will never not see her as his baby sister, as the little girl who toddled along behind him to practice. It’s not even that she’s a girl; he’s the same with Jared and Jordan. They were siblings before they were friends. She thinks maybe that's why she and Eric aren’t that close, even as adults with their shit in order.

Maybe it runs back to when she was three, the first winter Pa had set up their backyard rink with old boards and the neighbor's septic truck. She'd still been shakier on her skates than Eric, so she'd spent more time sat on the ice in front of the goal while he took shots that flew wide.

Maybe it runs back to when she was eleven, and Eric always paired up with Jared when they played on their rink; Icky and Jarjar versus Jupiter and Mars in endless rounds where the continuous score racked up into the thousands of points. Back then it was always Eric’s handwriting that kept eternal score on a whiteboard, updated every afternoon when the game picked back up after school.

Maybe it runs back to when she was fifteen in that same backyard rink, waiting for Eric to face off against Jordy, grinning counter against Jared. They were both on edge that year, Marcia waiting on her OHL exceptional player status and Eric waiting on the NHL draft. It was Eric finally hitting his growth spurt and catching up to her in height after a hundred thousand faceoffs, and a hundred thousand matches against her brothers until Ma switched off the lights and they held their collective breath. Sometimes Jared would droop a little against Eric’s shoulder, more exhausted at eleven than Marcia ever remembered being, and they would troop inside, Eric leading the way. Sometimes Jordan would knock ice off his skates, pass his stick from glove to glove, and Ma would turn the lights back on so the game could resume. Eric would be the first to surge forward, sweeping the puck up the ice.

Maybe it's the fact that Eric has always marched ahead; Marcia is keenly aware that she first gained attention as Eric Staal’s sister. _If that's how he plays, imagine his brothers_ , and their surprise that M. Staal of the OHL is a sister instead. She knows the Hurricanes considered her like the Canucks considered Danielle Sedin, an accompaniment to her brother, a publicity draw. _See how progressive we are, with a woman on the roster?,_ nevermind that they only really wanted her because of Eric. Nevermind that she and Eric had never played together, not even in their backyard.

Maybe it's the fact that Eric's life spun out before him, the NHL a destination rather than a far-flung dream, and his worthiness was never questioned, the rightness of his game never challenged. She loves him as she loves all her brothers, but part of her will always resent how much easier his path was.

On the other hand, she wouldn't trade anything so to walk her brother's road. This life is hers, and they can pry it from her cold, dead chest.

Eric is the first of the Staal family to win the Cup. When Jared and Jordan see it, they carefully avoid touching it. _Fuck that_ , Marcia thinks, and lays her hand on the Cup when the camera crew is gathered in the kitchen, being fed by Ma and Oma. The cup keeper quirks a smile at her when she slides her fingers over her family name engraved low on the base.

She’s broken more than enough barriers already; what’s one more taboo?

The first day of her second training camp with the Rangers arrives too soon; Marcia wakes up early, stomach fluttering with nerves. Beside her, Lindsay sleeps, curled around a pillow.

Marcia gets up, showers, and makes coffee. She settles into the living room of their apartment, absently scratching Egg behind her ears.

“You’ve got three hours until you need to be there,” Lindsay says some indeterminate time later, startling Marcia. “And it should only take you twenty-five minutes to get there, including traffic. Want me to do your makeup?”

“Yes, please.”

This was the quiet intimate ritual of their mornings--in high school, Marcia had dressed cleanly, kept her hair pulled back in a French braid she could practically do in her sleep, wore the school uniform to regulation, and looked the part of a student athlete. Makeup, however, was not in her skill sets, and so Lindsay would brush powder over Marcia’s face in the school bathroom, giving themselves a quiet moment of intimacy. In Sudbury, they’d broken out of school uniform habits, and Marcia had started leaving her hair loose, in long curling waves. Now, Marcia knew a few makeup tricks, but she still loved the closeness and the trust of letting Lindsay put on her face.

Lindsay sits Marcia on their bed and sets out her powders and brushes, gently going over Marcia’s face. It’s quiet as Lindsay dabs on concealer and a pale powder, covering up Marcia’s summer freckles.

“Nervous?” Lindsay asks.

“Oh, always,” Marcia replies, grinning up at her spouse. Lindsay bumps Marcia on the nose with her blush-brush and moves on to eyeshadow. She smudges it in with the pads of her fingers, her touch light.

Lindsay sits on Marcia’s knees to line her eyes. “There,” she says finally. “You look pretty goddamn fantastic, if I do say so myself.”

“I’ll trust you,” Marcia says, and gets up to get dressed.

She wears the same suit she wore to her first training camp, feeling like some things just need to be ritual. Then she goes to scramble eggs and put bread in the toaster. Lindsay’s kitchen skills haven’t improved, so she pours cups of juice and refreshes their mugs of coffee. Marcia’s mug gets a spoonful of protein powder. Lindsay’s gets cocoa.

Egg leaps up onto the counter as they eat, only to be shooed off by Lindsay and fed a palmful of dry cat food.

“Ready to face the music?”

“I’ve still got a half hour drive to Greenview,” Marcia points out. “I’ve got plenty of time to freak out.”

“Don’t freak out. You've got this.”

Breakfast is a muted affair, eaten off of new plates and with the radio quietly crooning in Quebecois French. Lindsay had chosen the station when they first moved in, and neither of them had bothered to find something else.

They wash up together, and Marcia checks that she has everything she’ll need.

“Let me get your lipstick before you go,” Lindsay says, distracted. “That pinky color that looks good on you. It won’t look bad when it gets rubbed around a bit, either.”

Marcia smiles, looking Lindsay over as she rummages through her makeup bag for the tube. “I wish you could come with me to this kind of stuff, it’d be nice to have someone who knew what they were doing.”

Lindsay finally finds what she’s looking for and uncaps it. “But I’d be so bored following you around just to do your lipstick.” She presses a lingering kiss to Marcia’s lips and then carefully applies the lipstick. “There. Perfect.”

“Yeah?”

Lindsay loosens a curl from Marcia’s up pinned hair, and then another, so Marcia’s face is neatly framed. “Yeah. Knock ‘em dead.”

There are a lot of d-men at the Rangers camp, between the vets, the rookies, and the farm team. One of them will be Marcia’s partner if she has to drag him kicking and screaming into working with her. She’s not really familiar with any of them, not well enough to start building a good partnership. A good d-pairing is as steady as stone, as trusting as marriage. She’d played with Adam McQuaid for years in Sudbury; with any luck, she’ll get a decade with her partner here on the Rangers. She didn’t have to like the guy, but it helped.

She’s tentatively favoring Dan Girardi. He’s her age, steady, and thus far hasn’t been a shithead, all points in his favor. So she sits next to him at lunch.

“Hey, Ginger,” he says, mouth already full of sandwich. “What’d you get to eat?”

“Same as you,” she tells him dryly, and props her feet up on the chair across from her. He nods, and they start a discussion on potential line combinations that goes for the rest of lunch.

When her plate is clear, Girardi nudges her ankle with his thigh. “Having fun yet?”

She snorts. “Fun is shinny. This is work. I’m gonna make it work.”

He laughs. Girardi had gone undrafted, she remembers. Marcia wasn’t entirely welcome in the league yet. They had playing styles that meshed beautifully, and they both had something to prove. She thinks this could work out well for all of them.

The coaching staff seems to agree when the two of them get paired together in drills that afternoon. She considers it a good day’s work: Marcia has her partner. Her good mood lasts through the rest of practice and a long talk with the coach, and into the shower.

She realizes her clean clothes are missing when she shuts off the shower and goes for her towel. They've left her the white bath sheet she had requested from the facility staff, so there are small mercies. Her day has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

Sighing deeply, she wraps the towel and digs a safety pin out of her shower caddy, in case anyone gets any bright ideas about yanking on her towel.

Towel secured, she gathers her things, and heads back for the locker room, compiling a list of who she's going to have to keep an eye on from here on out. She’s got a good idea of whose ass to kick from prospect camp the previous year, but people are apparently always willing to surprise her.

Someone--Orr--is standing on one of the locker room benches. “Rookies!” he shouts. “Better run and get your clothes before they freeze!”

Marcia sighs. Her fellow rookies look at each other, and then head back towards the rink, clutching their towels. She just goes for her stall.

“Idiots didn't think how it would look to take the clothes of the first girl on the team.” When Marcia looks up, Jagr is offering her a clean hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that will probably be too short for her. He blinks in surprise when she waves him off.

“I've had my clothes stolen before,” she says dryly. “You'd be amazed at how many OHL boys thought they could humiliate the girl off the ice if she had to cross the locker room naked.” At the bottom of her gear bag, she finds a gallon-sized Ziploc and pulls it out with a sharp grin. “You learn to handle it.”

“You--” Jagr curses under his breath. “No one did anything about it?”

Marcia snorts derisively, unzipping the bag to retrieve a thin but wearable change of her own clothes. “Boys will be boys, right? Come on, no one wanted me there. I'm not stupid. I followed procedure, filed complaints, but then I just got the reputation as the bitch who couldn't handle playing with the boys.” Her smile bares her teeth. “I can handle playing with the boys. Question is if _they_ can handle playing with _me_.”

She shimmies her stashed panties up under her towel, and notices not just Jagr averting his eyes. She makes a mental note of which teammates do, and wonders if they’re doing it out of courtesy or shame.

“So I got good at hitting people, and I dealt with it myself. It stops eventually, usually when they realize the only thing stopping me from kicking their asses is my own sense of self-control.”

“You shouldn't have to, here,” he says quietly.

“But I am, and I do. The milk is spilled, Captain.”

“Staal--”

“Am I _really_ the one you want to be lecturing right now?” The soffes she has are lime green, but they're soft with use. She pulls them on.

“No,” Jagr admits, and backs off.

Marcia grimaces and pulls the t-shirt on, advertising the Sudbury Wolves. Thank fuck her chest is flat enough to get away without wearing a bra. “Scrimmage tomorrow is gonna be fun.”

It takes a second to undo the safety pin and free her towel. She drops it in the laundry bin and heads out to reclaim her suit.

True enough, there are clothes scattered around the practice rink’s ice and a handful of rookies attempting to find theirs without dropping their towels. They stare at her as she steps into the ice in her flip-flops.

She takes her clothes and leaves everyone else's there, though she nudges Girardi’s toward him a little bit. She waves at the boys as she strolls back to the locker room, whistling.

The next day after ice time, the entire team is hauled into a meeting with PR and legal, are told off with a quiet fury that shakes everyone from Marcia all the way out to the most seasoned vets. The message is clear: no one is happy that anything appearing even remotely like harassment towards Marcia had happened in their barn.

Marcia is quietly stunned; she wasn’t expecting anyone to have this kind of response without her filing official complaints. She is pulled aside for a one-on-one meeting, though, which definitely means the men on the team are getting told how to behave around her.

It’s not a fun meeting.

When they let her go, the rest of the team has already packed up and headed out for their respective homes. She makes it to her car and just sits there in the parking lot, breathing in deeply.

Eric’s call is a surprise, not necessarily unwelcome.

“Have any of those shitasses given you grief?” he opens, sounding deeply suspicious.

Marcia sighs. “No, Eric.”

“I know how hockey players gossip.”

“Great, so do I.” She switches her phone to speaker, and turns the key in the ignition. “It’s like you don’t even know me, Icky.”

“I can come kick some ass.”

“If you show up at my barn for any reason than a ‘Canes game, I will personally shred you with my skate blades.”

Eric sniggers; there’s no other word for the sound he makes. “You got it handled, then?”

“As much as I can.” She pauses, and goes to pull out of the lot. “Vets stole the rookie’s clothes yesterday. Including mine.”

Eric’s silence is telling.

“I handled it. They weren’t thinking.”

“And you know that how?”

“Because I’d kick their asses if they’d actually thought through the implications of it. They were thinking of me as team, not as that girl they have to treat like glass. HR gave us a lovely speech about co-ed gender relations.”

Eric is quiet. “And?”

“They wanted to make sure I didn’t need to press charges. Or fall in love with one of them.” She sighs. “I thought about it.”

“Falling in love with one of them? Lindsay won’t be happy.”

“No, I meant pressing charges. It’d teach them a lesson right off the bat, make sure nothing ever actually happened. I don’t want it to ever get to the point that I need to press charges for harassment, but I don’t want to let anything slide, you know?”

“You changed your mind?”

Marcia rubs her palm of the steering wheel. It’s hot from sitting in the summer sun. “They already have someone specifically processing my hate mail. There have been...so many death threats. Like. So many.” She shudders a little; they’d shown her some of the less graphic letters, and she was still sure she’d have nightmares.

Eric sucks in a breath, the line crackling with static between them. “ _Jesus_ , Mars.”

She drums her fingers on the wheel. “It’s not worse than the Wolves. The Rangers have more resources. They can figure out what’s a valid threat.”

“Mars…”

She keeps quiet as she makes a turn. “Sid warned me this was coming. Dani, too. I just want to play hockey. The guys stealing my clothes like any other rookie? That barely ranks on the scale of what these...people want to do to me.”

“I wish I could--help. Somehow.”

“Get a girl on the ‘Canes. Make it so normal that no one threatens to kill me over anything but the way I play.” Eric swears. She continues. “I’m glad I’m not playing with you. I love you, but then they’d just call me your sister in addition to everything else.”

“You _are_ my sister.”

“Yeah, and I get the chance to be something other than that when I’m not playing with any of you.” She sighs. “Don’t you have practice?”

“Not until later.”

“Sorry for dumping on you.”

“Don’t be. Unless it’s the me part you’re objecting to, in which case: fuck you, I’m totally a better brother than Jordan.”

“Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that.”

“Tell Lindsay I say hi.”

“She’ll probably say hi back. Hey, Icky?”

“Hm?”

“Talk to be about what you and Cam have gotten up to,” she says, instead of bursting into tears like she wants to. “Ma’s been giving me moving updates, but I really couldn’t care less about the fact that you’re doing your living room in florals.”

Eric squawks. “It’s not _florals_!”

“The photos Ma sent say otherwise,” she teases, and gets most of the way home listening to Eric’s bitching about home renovation and Cam Ward’s idea of a housewarming party.

There’s a lull in Eric’s stream of chatter when she finally pulls onto her street.

“Hey, Mars?” Eric says. “I love you. I don’t say it much--”

“--oh god, you’re being sappy--”

“Shut up, we’re having a moment. I know you’re going to be badass. The Rangers are lucky to have you. But I really think you should talk to someone about the shit going on.”

“You?”

“Me. Lindsay. Jordan. Sidney Crosby, if that’s what’s easiest. It was hard for me, settling into the ‘Canes system. You’ve got it twice as hard.”

“So I’ll work twice as hard.”

“You can’t hit everything better.”

“Watch me.”

“Mars. Think about it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Eric?” she pauses and hears him hum into the quiet. “I love you too. Tell no one I said this.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a big tough defenseman who doesn’t have feelings. No admissions of love to your favorite older brother.”

“Damn straight.” Marcia half-smiles. “Did I tell you they’ve started calling me Ginger?”

“For your hair?”

“Sort of. Also for Ginger Rogers. Anything you can do, I’ll do backwards and in high heels.”

Eric snorts. “A more apt nickname was never given.”

“Sure, _Icky_.”

Marcia smiles when Eric squawks.

Ryan Callaghan, despite Marcia’s best efforts, begins to grow on her like a leech. Perhaps a particularly stubborn barnacle.

At camp, it’s not certain if he’ll be up with the Rangers or down in Hartford, and he doesn’t even bother looking for a permanent place to stay. Like Marcia, he doesn’t have a billet; unlike Marcia, he mostly stays at whatever hotel the Rangers decide to put him in.

So Marcia takes the initiative and relocates him to the spare bedroom in her apartment.

Lindsay takes it in stride, rolling her eyes and digging out a brand-new set of sheets to put on the guest bed when Marcia brings Ryan home.

“If anyone asks, you are not my roomie,” Marcia tells him sternly. “I will bust your ass back to Hartford personally if you make my life any harder than it needs to be.”

Ryan puts his hands up in mock surrender and crashes out in the guest bedroom gleefully. He doesn’t stay long before he’s back to Hartford, but he’s her first teammate who knows about Lindsay. He doesn’t totally get that Marcia and Lindsay are married.

Forwards are a special brand of dumb, Marcia thinks fondly. She doesn’t bother explaining herself, and he never bothers asking. It works out.

Ryan and Dan know each other from minors, and now from Hartford; it’s not uncommon for both of them to end up on her couch, chirping each other and eating Marcia’s food. It’s good companionship, so she doesn’t complain.

The three of them go out and settle into a routine; Tuesday nights, if they’re not playing a preseason game, are for the younger guys on the team to go out. Lindsay doesn’t come along to these things, pushing Marcia to spend social time with her team, not just work time. The four of them usually go out to bunch the morning afters, where Lindsay can drink a mimosa and Marcia will eat greasy potatoes like it’s the end times.

It’s good companionship, even when the three of them get into bickering arguments over stupid things that Lindsay eggs on rather than referees.

“And you’re an expert?” Dan leans back in his chair and waves the steak knife he’s holding rather carelessly. “Let me guess. You learned because you had brothers.”

Marcia gives him the stink eye. “No. I learned because I grew up in middle of nowhere, not-even God-can-hear-you-scream, Ontario, and there was fuck all to do. _You'd_ learn to throw knives out of sheer boredom too.”

Dan pauses and digests that. “I can see that.”

“So you know you’ve got to have a properly balanced knife.”

“I did _not_ say that.”

Marcia scoops up a bite of potatoes drenched in egg yolk and shoves it in her mouth; her head is still throbbing a little, but hell if these potatoes aren’t the best thing she’s tasted in her life. She can imagine years on this team, years of breakfasts with her boys and Lindsay sniggering quietly beside them as she signals for more coffee.

More than anything, Marcia wants this to work out.

The first time she dresses out for a home game, she sweeps into the Madison Square Garden locker room with her hair loose, looking more like one of the front office ladies than one of the players. She strips down unselfconsciously, hanging her suit in her stall and shimmying into her under armor. Then, as the locker room fills with the sounds of her teammates gearing up and chirping each other, she does her hair.

There are picketers outside of Madison Square Garden because it’s the first time she plays, and there probably will be more protesters almost every time after that. Sidney’s protesters haven't let up yet.

Marcia tries not to think about it.

She sits cross-legged on the bench, a strip of pins on one knee and her wooden-backed brush on the other. None of her teammates have seen this; for practices, she comes in with her hair already up. Her game day ritual is different; she has always done her own hair in the locker room before a game. Today, she brushes out her hair in fifty even strokes, then begins to coil it into a tight braid, pinning it around her temple in a corona, doubling it back across the back of her head. Across the locker room, Jagr watches.

She bares her teeth at him, and he laughs, so she laughs back.

When Marcia pins up her hair, she uses exactly eighteen pins, and a blue elastic. When she pulls them out later, her hair will fall in loose waves, red as fire, bright as her blood on the ice, well past her shoulders. With her hair tightly contained under her helmet, though, she’s been mistaken for a clean-shaven Jordy.

It’s not uncommon for her pins to gouge her scalp if she takes a rough knock on the helmet, and she thinks wryly of her brothers’ reaction the first time she came home with blood caked in her hair. None of her teammates had even flinched the first time she bled on their locker room floor.

“Anything you can do I can do bleeding,” she murmurs to herself. She tucks up one stray wisp of hair and stands up to pull on the rest of her gear.

“You ever get tired of dealing with that mane, Ginger?” Lundqvist asks. Marcia likes him; she’s confident he'll be solid behind her.

Marcia pats at her braids, checking that everything is pinned down securely. It’s a bitch and a half to get her helmet on and realize something’s come loose. “It’s my playoff beard.”

“What?”

“We win a Cup, I'll cut it. Until then...”

Lundqvist reaches out to touch her hair. She smacks his hand away.

“Get us to playoffs and you can touch it. Otherwise, fuck off.”

He raises his hands and backs away, but he’s smiling. Marcia nods and then finishes getting dressed out.

When asked later, Marcia will not remember much about her first game. She will remember the blue of their uniforms and who they played against, the scrape of the ice and the full-body intensity of every single emotion. She won’t remember why she threw down her gloves, but she’s pretty sure it had to do with one of the forwards getting crushed against the boards and the ref not calling it. It only partially has to do with the barrage of slurs the opposing player chooses to employ the second her blades hit the ice.

Her shoulder gets jarred, but all her teeth are intact when she’s summarily escorted to the sin bin.

The Garden roared, she remembers that much. On replays, she thinks it’s in approval. Coach yells, gives her hell for getting into a fight in literally the first two minutes she’s on NHL ice.

“He started it,” she hears herself say. “I finished it.”

Coach sighs, pats her shoulder, and the game goes on.

They win; she doesn’t know how, but they win. If she’d fought and they’d lost, she’d never hear the end of it, but she fought and they won and the boys are all clapping her back and cheering for their Ginger.

She gets through the post-game, protected as rookies are, and goes to shower with her shoulder blossoming red with a budding bruise.

She unpins her hair as carefully as she’d secured it up, sliding each bobby pin back onto the slip of cardboard, running her fingers through to unwind each braid. Her shower is hot, and through the curtain she can hear the friendly ribbing of her team. She soaps up her hair and scrubs at her face, and feels the adrenaline drain from her bones.

Someone taps her on the shoulder and she lunges for her shower caddy. Her hand is around the switchblade she’s kept stashed there since Juniors and she overheard someone joke about fixing the lesbian bitch’s attitude with his cock before she realizes it's one of the team physios.

She lets the switchblade drop, hoping Kelsey thinks it's just a razor.

“My shoulder, right?” Marcia asks lightly, hurriedly grabbing for her towel. “You want to check on it after the hit?”

“Yup,” she says, and the way Kelsey’s eyes linger on her caddy says she definitely saw her knife. “You always have that?”

Marcia meets the trainer’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Ever had to use it?”

“I probably wouldn't have actually stabbed you.”

“Well, that depends on how much training with it you have.” The trainer smiles. “Female facility staff have a self-defense class on Tuesdays. You should drop by sometime.”

“You’d let me?”

“Shit, we’d love to have you.”

Kelsey grins. “We’ll see you on Tuesday, then?”

“Absolutely.”

It’s a good thing she gets along with Kelsey. Marcia doesn’t get her own room on road trips, which is half-baffling and half completely expected. No other player gets a single room, so Marcia doesn’t either. What does happen is that she rooms with one of the female trainers who travels with them--Kelsey.

“Before you, I roomed with the Rangers TV girls,” Kelsey says, tucking her roller bag into the closet. “They’re great, but it can be a little damaging to the self-esteem when they pick up three nights out of four and no one’s looking at the buff girl.”

Marcia snorts. “Preach. Well. Preach, until I got married.”

“Hubby a cutie?”

“Wife is fucking awesome,” Marcia corrects. “Uh, if that’s an issue, tell me now.”

“I might make a few jokes about how of _course_ the professional athlete is a lesbian, but nah. I played field hockey in college and half the team was either someone else on the team’s girlfriend or their ex. If I had an issue with it, my sports med degree would probably be a physical therapy degree instead.” Kelsey stretched and flopped onto her bed in a heavy, graceless movement. “I can clear out if you wanna hang with the guys. I know rooming with staff is probably harshing your buzz.”

“You assume I have a buzz to be harshed. Nah, I’ll go harass the rest of the D-Corps in their rooms. They don’t need to come in here.”

Kelsey gives her a nod, and a status quo is established.

As the season goes on, Marcia lets the Rangers media team wrangle her into interviews alongside the captain and his As. She knows it’s a move carefully calculated for publicity and intent; Sidney and Dani had warned her as much.

It was hard not to notice all the ways she didn’t really belong there. She wasn’t team leadership, she was the only rookie pulled into this much media, she was the only one with long loose hair and carefully tailored clothing, the only one who they pulled aside for makeup between the game and the interviews.

“Harder to pave a road than walk it,” she murmurs to herself when one of the Rangers TV staff tugs her hair out of its braids. She takes some of the softball questions and glares coldly when she’s asked about her signature style.

She hadn’t really considered that she had a signature style, but apparently, she does and apparently it’s more noteworthy than her defense. Apparently, it’s more important to ask about pussy-bow blouses and wide-legged trousers than their chances at making the playoffs, or what defensive strategies they think are the most effective.

The one media thing she does enjoy in her whole first year comes over the All-Star Weekend. Sidney is the only one of the women invited, but Marica tags along to annoy and/or cheer on Eric, who was invited. Carey shows up for reasons Marcia doesn’t quite understand, and Dani puts in an appearance once she realizes the other women will be there.

Once the league catches wind, Marcia gets dragged into a solid day of media, despite technically being on vacation.

They end up in a photoshoot at a practice rink, the four of them in ballgowns and their jerseys. It’s kind of fucking awesome, even if Sidney looks as constipated as anyone Marcia’s ever seen. At least their dresses are in team colors, or else Sidney definitely would have cried.

Carey wears red; Marcia blue; Sidney gold; Dani green. It’s an _image_ when they line up on the ice, with their skirts swirling around them and their hockey skates shining out from underneath tulle and silk and lace. Marcia fucking _loves_ it.

“The fuck is this?” Straka asks after a tiring home practice where they’d been bag skated halfway through the ice. He holds up a pair of vaguely familiar-looking black undershorts with a confused look on his face. “What happened to my jock?”

The locker room bursts into good-natured chirps, but mostly everyone is involved in their own conversations.

Marcia frowns down at her own laundry loop and realizes something is off. “Uh, you label your shit with your initials?”

The chirps slow; Marcia sees realization dawn on Straka’s face before the ball drops for the rest of the room. The room bursts back into ribbing Straka for not noticing he had a woman's gear; was his dick really _that_ small?

Marcia chucks Straka’s loop at him, loaded with his clean socks and jocks, and gets hers back in return.

“The fuck is that thing, anyway?” Straka asks, in good humor, rifling through his loop.

Marcia raises an eyebrow. “Pelvic protector.”

“Come again?”

“It's my jillstrap,” she says drily. He drops his clean laundry and nearly trips over half the team as he scuttles back, apologizing. Marcia laughs until she's red in the face, and then she laughs some more.

The facility staff are busy apologizing to both Marcia and Martin; both of their laundry was labeled with MS and their numbers, but a sloppily written 18 can look like a wash worn 82 when read upside down and in a hurry.

Marcia waves them off and gets changed. She'd seen her fair share of laundry mixups with the Wolves. Admittedly no one had ever swapped her gear with a guy’s set before but at least she wasn't going to come to the realization that she was wearing someone else's shorts mid-game. She definitely wasn’t going to get dressed out and realize her sports bra was designed for someone a cup size larger on the way out to the ice, as had happened at least once in Sudbury.

“WAGS dinner this weekend,” Shanahan calls when the chirps die down and almost everyone is chatting about weekend plans. “Location and everything is in your email, but we need a headcount.”

“Hey,” Straka chips in. “Ginger is here. Add a HAB to the count.”

Unthinkingly, Marcia speaks, her head tangled in her sweaty under armor. “No, still a WAG.”

There’s a beat of stunned quiet. Shanahan sounds slightly strangled when he says “Two seats for you then, Ginger?”

Marcia hums her agreement and grabs her towel. “See you there.”

In the shower, Marcia hyperventilates under the spray until she can get herself under control. If anyone notices that her shower is longer than usual, no one mentions it. All talk of the dinner is suspiciously absent from the locker room as she redresses to go home.

“Fuck,” she says quietly.

She holds off the impending sense of doom until she’s at home, on the couch, and Lindsay has walked in the door. Then she might hyperventilate a little while explaining the invite and the situation.

Lindsay tucks herself into Marcia’s hold and coaxes her through the story from the beginning.

“Oh, Marcia,” Lindsay sighs once the story has spilled out in its entirety. She presses her forehead to Marcia’s chest, then looks up and meets Marcia's eyes. “You’re brave, dearest. Too brave, sometimes.”

Lindsay’s Dutch will never be as smooth as Marcia’s, but it is charming rather than clumsy.

Marcia replies in kind. “Do you not want to go?”

“Of course I do. I want to be involved in your work, I want to know your teammates, I want to come to your games and cheer for you so everyone can see. But I want it to be on your terms, when _you're_ not scared.”

“Lindsay--”

“Marcia. I love you. Are you hearing me? I love you. But you have so many eyes on you, it's okay to be scared. There is too much weight on you already.” Lindsay rubs her thumb over Marcia’s bottom lip. “I’m proud to be there with you, but if it gets too much...you’ll let me know, yes?”

When the time for the dinner comes, Marcia chooses a dress, leaves her hair loose. She wears flat shoes and slides her wedding ring home.

Lindsay winds her own hair up, hooks on a pair of earrings. She looks like any other WAG Marcia has seen at every Rangers game so far and Marcia knows Lindsay's look is carefully calculated. Marcia has played a year for the Rangers, and Lindsay has never met the team. This is Lindsay establishing that she belongs.

They take a cab, their fingers linked together on the seat in between them.

The guys already there are circled around one of the tables; their wives, girlfriends, and other dates are clustered on the other side of the room. There are already more than a few sidelong glances around the room at Marcia’s arm around Lindsay’s waist.

Dan sees them first and waves them over to the knot of D-men.

They each have a drink while mingling, drinks purchased by one of the older players and passed to them immediately. Lindsay and Dan argue about gin varieties because they both have terrible taste in alcohol. Marcia stares down any awkward questions with a raised eyebrow, and all goes fairly well as they sit down for the meal.

Marcia is tipsy, Lindsay is flushed high in her cheeks. It’s a good evening, their fingers tangled together under the table between courses.

“We’re at a table with a fucking dyke,” Sauer’s date spits. “How the fuck are you okay with that?”

Marcia stiffens but forces herself to ease back. She pretends she hasn’t heard, flicking a quick glance at Lindsay. Her wife’s face is set into a grim cast, and she sets her wine glass down.

“So fucking what?” Sauer snarls, and that’s genuine anger in his voice. The nearby tables are hushing, darting looks at the source of rising tension. “She hasn’t done a single goddamn thing to hurt you, so shut your fucking mouth and move into the twenty-first century.”

“She’s a lesbo, she’s just waiting to make a move on one of us, probably gets off on _raping_ \--”

Sauer slams his fists down on the table, and yup, that’s the whole room looking at them. This isn’t the way Marcia saw the evening going to shit, but she’s not at all surprised it’s already gone to hell in a handbasket. “Shut your _fucking mouth,_ Rae. There are so many fucking shitty things wrong with goddamn everything you’ve just fucking said that I don’t even fucking know where to start. One, she’s lesbian, not a dyke, not a lebso, not whatever piece of shit word you think is appropriate, which, for the record, is _fucking not_.”

Sauer’s date is gaping at him. She starts stammering something out, but Sauer rages on, even as Jagr stands and starts making his way across the room.

“Two, she’s married, you motherfucking _asshole_. Just because she’s a lesbian doesn’t mean she wants to jump every woman she sees, and especially not _you_ when you’re acting like a sack of shit. Three, rape is not a thing to fucking _joke_ about, and it’s not something to accuse someone of unless it’s totally fucking founded--”

His date manages to get words out. “She’s a _faggot_!”

“Use that word again and I’ll deck you right fucking here, swear to God I will, Rae. Would you call me that?” Marcia blinks. That was _not_ where she saw this going. Lindsay’s hand tightens in hers.

“That’s different, you’re not a--”

“I absolutely am, Rae, or is it okay because I like both. Would you call me that?”

“But you’re not a bad one--”

“And neither is Marcia Staal!”

“But how do you _know_ that?”

“The same way I know the rest of my teammates are good people!”

 “I think this needs to head outside,” Jagr says into the silence that follows. “Sauer, Ms…”

“Princeton,” she snaps.

“Ms. Princeton, this is not the place for this argument.”

“Like hell it is. Don’t call me,” she tells Sauer, and storms out with her purse.

Lindsay stands and takes Marcia’s hand. “I think it’s time for us to go.”

Sauer is flushed. “Dessert hasn’t even come!”

“Be that as it may, I prefer not to be insulted while I eat.” Lindsay stands straight. “Marcia, please get our coats.”

When Marcia returns, Lindsay is shaking Jagr’s hand. Sauer is slumped in his chair.

“I'd say it was a pleasant evening, but…” Lindsay lets Marcia help her into her coat, and then she loops her arm with Marcia's. “We’ll meet again, I assume. Hopefully in better circumstances, and in better company.”

No one meets Marcia’s eyes as they leave.

Practice the next day is relatively subdued for a group of players who take great glee in their jobs. Marcia doesn’t really talk to anyone but Dan and the coaching staff. Once she’s dressed back out in street clothes, Jagr grabs her elbow.

“Lunch?” he asks, and it’s not really a request. “My treat.”

He’s polite enough to hold off on questioning until they’re settled at a restaurant, with their food steaming on plates in front of them.

“How long have you been married?” Jagr asks.  He’s stirring his water with his straw, the ice cubes clinking concordantly. “You never mention her.”

“I talk about Linds all the time.”

“Not as your wife.”

Marcia shrugs and takes a bite of pasta. “Since before the draft. But we've been together since we were fifteen.”

“The League treating you right?”

“Dani’s been helping me,” Marcia admits. “New York is one of the better places we could have ended up. Nashville might have…” she trails off.

Jagr snorts. “Maybe not. You could've told us.”

Marcia smiles wryly. “Didn’t I just do that?”

“That is...not untrue.” Jagr cocks his head. He looks young still. It’s surreal to think that she’s having this conversation with a man whose playing career has spanned her entire living memory. “We give up a lot for this game of ours. Don’t let your wife be something you give up. Don’t hide her.”

“Girardi knew. Callaghan knew.”

“Two call-ups who haven’t got a permanent place with us yet.” He lets his smile slip. “You’re a Ranger, Marcia. We’ll have your back if you let us.”

“Try proving that,” Marcia says, and refuses to say any more on the topic.

Marcia flops onto the couch when she gets home, exhausted down to her bones. There’s more than she wants to really think about, in terms of her team, her family, her life. She just wants her brain to be blank for a little while.

She stares at the ceiling until she hears the garage open, and then the slam of the door to the mudroom.

“Okay, I have something to show you,” Lindsay says, dropping her purse and toeing off her shoes.

“Yeah?”

Lindsay lifts her skirt, [grinning](https://cdn.thisiswhyimbroke.com/images/kitten-panties-300x250.jpg). “Lookit my pussy.”

Marcia falls back onto the couch, cackling. Lindsay’s panties have a cartoon cat face on them. It looks truly bizarre peering out from the framing of her skirt. “Those are _amazing_.”

Lindsay drops the hem of her skirt and settles astride Marcia’s lap. “I thought you’d like them. Since yours are all boring.”

“Hey, you try wearing cute underwear in a room full of male professional athletes. Shit gets _awkward_ , Linds.”

“Mm, but wouldn’t it be so fun?”

Marcia runs her hands up Lindsay’s thighs, rucking up her skirt to toy with the edge of Lindsay’s panties.

“You want something, Linds?” she asks. Lindsay is leaning forward, her hair loose and falling towards Marcia.

“You want to get your fingers in me?” Lindsay retorts, spreading her knees a little wider. “Fuck me a little?”

“I could. Or you could sit on my face for awhile.”

“Ooh. Decisions, decisions.” Lindsay squirms. “Can't I have both?”

“Only if I get to make you come twice.” Marcia slides her hand further up under Lindsay's skirt, and brushes her fingers over Lindsay through her panties.

Lindsay shudders. She's sensitive, more sensitive than Marcia, and coming more than once makes her loose and languid for hours. She doesn’t let Marcia take her that apart all that often.

“Oh,” she sighs, and leans back a little.

Everything about Lindsay is softer than Marcia. She works out, but not nearly to the degree Marcia does. She's got give in her thighs and a softness to her hips and breasts that Marcia loves to mark up.

Marcia presses her fingers closer to Lindsay's core. “You gonna let me?” She asks. “Linds?”

“I suppose,” Lindsay says, as if it's a great sacrifice to let Marcia make her come.

Marcia helps Lindsay shimmy out of her underwear and shed her t-shirt and skirt. Lindsay returns the favor by rucking up Marcia’s t-shirt and unbuttoning her jeans. They have to pause for a minute while Marcia tries to free herself from her skinny jeans.

“You pick the worst jeans, oh my god,” Lindsay says, and doesn't bother trying to hide her sniggers. “Your ass looks fucking amazing, but at what cost?”

Marcia finally gets her jeans off and tackles Lindsay to the floor.

“Hi,” Lindsay says when she finally stops giggling.

Marcia kisses her wife, cupping Lindsay’s cheeks with both hands. “Hi.”

Lindsay rests her forehead against Marcia’s. Marcia buries the fingers of one hand in the hair at Lindsay’s nape and skims her other hand down Lindsay’s belly. This is something Marcia knows how to do, make Lindsay shake. This is the easiest thing in the world, the two of them together.

Lindsay goes quiet when she comes, drawing in a long breath and exhaling in one long shudder.

“I thought you bargained for two,” Lindsay teases, flush high in her cheeks. “And I want to return the favor.”

Marcia kisses Lindsay, then takes her hand and drags her down the hall to their bedroom.

They mic her up for a game. She could have warned them that was a bad idea, but they’re dumb enough to do it at a game against Chicago, so she’s not exactly feeling charitable.

They don’t mic her up again.

Marcia is sipping at a glass of wine, chatting with Tanya and gently ribbing Jared for being too young to go out their brothers when she gets the call.

They’re in Minneapolis, of all places, for Eric’s wedding to Tanya. They’ve split into two groups for the evening, Eric and Jordan going out for Eric’s bachelor party and the rest of the Staals staying in with Tanya’s family for a quiet night in. Marcia had attended Tanya’s bachelorette the night before, so she wasn’t interested in going whole hog with her brothers tonight.

She makes her way through the call, polite and passably sober, though when she hangs up she can’t contain her giggles. Across the room, Heather’s expression suggests she’d gotten the same phone call.

Jared eyes her suspiciously, but so is their mother. “Wrong number,” she explains offhandedly. She keeps up the conversation for five minutes, and then politely excuses herself.

She makes it to the car she and Lindsay have rented for the week before Heather catches up.

“Eric and Jordy?” Heather asks.

Marcia nods.

“Great. I’m coming with.”

“You sure?”

Heather snorts indelicately. “Let’s see, bail my boyfriend out of jail, or keep talking with your mom while she hints that Jordan should hurry up and make an honest woman out of me--I think I’ll come with you.”

Eric and Jordan both look exhausted once Marcia and Lindsay finally fill out the forms to file their bail. It’s awkwardly quiet between them; Heather holds out until they get to the car.

“So,” Heather says, turning in the front seat to look at the boys in the back. “Arrested, huh? What happened to a quiet bar hop before the wedding?”

God, Marcia can’t wait to have Heather as her sister-in-law.

What follows is one of their Staal-style rounds of bribery, negotiation, and favor-trading. Marcia comes out of it with two favors to cash in with each of them, and they get a sworn promise she won’t tattle on them to Ma. She kind of doubts Ma won’t ever find out, but she can just not tell Ma until after the wedding.

“I thought I was gonna be the first Staal with an arrest record,” she quips. “If not me, then Linds. But _you two_?”

Eric scowls at her. “You can stop laughing any time, Mars.”

“I just bailed you out of jail. I will stop laughing when I feel like it.” Beside them, Heather and Jordy are having a similar conversation.

They make it through the wedding without Ma finding out, but the news breaks right before the reception. Eric is too busy with Tanya to be scolded, but Jordan gets reamed out by their mother.

It’s one of the funniest things Marcia has ever seen. She’d have stayed for the whole thing, but Lindsay drags her off to get changed.

Eric’s reception is a fancy affair, so Marcia lets Lindsay dress her up, in a full-skirted gown that sweeps the floor and a tight lace bodice. The top is studded in sequins and silver jewels while the skirt is layers upon layers of tulle and silk; she looks more a WAG than a player tonight, but she likes imagining Don Cherry having conniptions over an openly lesbian couple in the league. It would make her only slightly less controversial than Dani, who has a baby on the way.

Lindsay is wearing solid, navy blue, her skirt more closely cut. It’s more conservative than some of the other dresses they’ll see tonight, but that’s the way Lindsay has always been.

She cries when she makes her toast to her brother; Jordan is openly tearing up, which is wonderful blackmail material for years to come. She cheers when they cut the cake and line up for photos, lets Eric take her for a dance when Tanya dances with her brothers. She gets through two glasses of champagne and a tumbler of whiskey by the time Eric finally lets her sit down.

One of Tanya’s nieces is quick to beg for her attention.

Marcia tugs at her skirt, pulling the front half up. Lindsay grins and helps her gather the material tight. Together, they wrestle the extra fabric back between Marcia’s legs, hitching it around her hips and knotting it tightly. Marcia’s hair they quickly pile up using a pen from Lindsay's purse, and Marcia toes off her heels and swaps them for the Vibrams tucked at the bottom of her bag.

“Are we going?” she asks Jared and Jordan, sweeping past them and tucking one last lock of hair up, securing it with a bobby pin. “We’ve got some kids to play with.”

Behind her, Lindsay is laughing, one of Tanya’s nieces held against her hip.

They play a rough game of tag across the grass until the knot holding Marcia’s skirt up fails. She ducks out of the game and finds a place to sit and drink a glass of champagne she snags off of a nearby table. The dance floor is full of drunk adults, and Marcia considers joining them; she’ll wait until Lindsay’s tired herself out.

Someone sits next to her and takes her champagne glass; it’s Jared, who has been identified to every server in the room and has probably been trying to get his hands on any kind of drink all night. She lets him have the rest of the glass.

“You want kids, huh?” Jared asks, astute as always.

Marcia elbows him back. “That obvious?”

“Maybe a little.”

“You think you’ll obtain one?”

“Jesus, sound more like I’m going to pick up a kid and run away with it,” she says. “Tell me about what’s going on with you and Alaina.”

Jared flushes, but he’s happy enough to chatter about his girlfriend. The two of them are sweet together, if reluctant to talk to Marcia about their relationship over the course of their many, many texts. Alaina is killing it as she works her way up towards being the Wolves’ starting goalie, and Jared is excited as hell to keep playing juniors. By the time Lindsay makes her way back to Marcia, Jared has talked his way through plans for Christmas and Valentine’s day, and a plan to surprise Alaina over the summer.

“Everything going well?” Lindsay asks. Marcia smiles and reaches up to pull Lindsay down into her lap.

“Yeah,” Marcia says. "Yeah, it really is.

[Excerpt](http://time.com/6714/medals-arent-enough-female-olympians-still-have-to-sell-sexiness-2/)from **PRETTY ENOUGH TO PLAY?,** Time Magazine

...When initially approached about posing naked for ESPN the Magazine’s Body Issue, which features naked athletes, New York Rangers defensewoman Marcia Staal was skeptical. “I think there are some that look at that issue, and their initial reaction is anything done posing nude has to be trying to sell sex or a certain image,” she says. But once she understood that the issue (which includes both men and women) was about strength not sex, she agreed.

“I think that issue really highlights that there’s a lot of different types of bodies for elite athletes, and all of them can be beautiful and strong and confident,” she says. The bodies ESPN the Magazine features stray from the skinny, large breasted women you typically see on the covers of magazines in grocery stores. “For hockey players, we have big legs. We’ve got to be able to motor on the ice and have balance. But we can still have more muscular body types and be beautiful in our own right.”

She was reassured when her mom saw the picture. “When the image came out, I asked my mom, ‘So, Ma, what do you think about it?’ And she said, ‘The first word that came to my mind was powerful.’”

Her mother also had an interesting insight about her children’s appearances in ESPN the Magazine’s Body Issue. Marcia has two brothers who also play in the NHL, Jordan (with the Pittsburgh Penguins) and Eric (with the Carolina Hurricanes), both of whom appeared in the same issue.

“I get stopped in the grocery store,” Linda Staal said in a phone interview. “People ask me how I can be okay with my daughter posing naked for a magazine. No one’s yet asked me about my sons appearing naked. Jared (the youngest Staal child) is just embarrassed about all of them equally, but he gets the most jibes about Marcia.”

Linda Staal has seen the media reaction to all four of her children. When they were teenagers, media outlets would occasionally phone the house to ask about the top prospects. Jordan, Eric, and now Jared get interview requests asking about their playing style. Marcia received interview requests about her skincare routine.

“It makes no sense to me,” Linda Staal continues. “She’s confident with her body and works hard to keep it in playing condition, as do her brothers. I’m proud of her for taking part in the shoot. She was braver than I could have been at her age.”

Many other winter athletes have posed for the Body Issue, including snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler (on one of the 2004 covers above). Twenty years ago, most moms would have balked at even the suggestion of such a picture. It’s a testament to the growth of Western popular culture that we can accept a naked female as an empowering picture that can bolster young girls’ body image.

But Staal’s initial skepticism wasn’t totally misplaced. Female athletes who strip down still undergo media scrutiny. Fellow NHL player Danielle Sedin (Vancouver Canucks) also appeared in the issue, but Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins) declined.

When I spoke to Kevin Adler, he happened to be flipping through a spread on America’s favorite skier Lindsey Vonn in the newest issue of Red Bull Magazine. “All the pictures are of her in super skimpy outfits with almost, you could argue, a little bit of an S&M theme with high heels. And then I flip through the rest of the magazine, and all the male athletes are depicted in a completely different way,” he says. (Vonn didn’t compete in the last winter Olympics due to a knee injury.)

Crosby expressed a desire to be viewed as a player rather than a sex object, and cited that as her reason for rejecting the offer...


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things go very right, and then go very wrong.

#  **Four**

[Hey Brother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cp6mKbRTQY) _: (hey, sister: know the water’s sweet but blood is thicker/if the sky comes falling down/for you, there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do)_

When Marcia was five, their air conditioning broke. It was the summer Eric learned to drive the tractor, and the summer Jared had colic. Marcia didn’t yet know it, but it was the summer Marion Rheaume signed her contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. At five years old, all Marcia knew was that she and Jordan were left to their own devices more often than not, his grubby hand in hers as they toddled around the yard and played on the rope swing their dad had strung up. Jordan was three, and he wanted to be Eric when he grew up, or else Marcia.

Oma Lieve came to stay with them, and she would sit on the porch and call out to them in Dutch as they scrabbled in the dirt. Marcia had pretty clothes, for Sunday church and family dinners, but out in the yard she wore Eric's castoffs and her red ladybug wellies, and Jordan wore them once she outgrew them. No reason to buy new clothes that would only get dirty, and a shirsey with Gretzky on it would suit a little girl as much as it did a little boy. A pink shirt reading PRINCESS across the front was a little less suitable for a boy, but Jordan didn’t exactly care even before it was covered in mud.

Marcia thinks that summer is the reason she’s closest with Jordan.

They played fantasy in the yard, where Marcia was the dragon and Jordan the knight, a peewee hockey stick Jordan's sword. She was Mars, and he was Jupiter, and they skinned their knees and climbed trees. At lunchtime, they carried Dad's lunchpail out to him, and shared a sandwich with Eric. They would wander back slowly, picking flowers or catching frogs, the empty lunch pail swinging from Marcia's hand as she was tugged along by Jordan.

Because the air conditioning was broken, Marcia’s thick hair was always soaked through with sweat. Oma Lieve clucked over it, but she never clucked so much as the day she found Jordan and Marcia struggling with Mom’s heavy sewing scissors, having roughly chopped off Marcia’s braid.

Oma had sighed and found the clippers Mom used to shear Dad’s hair short, and to trim her brothers’ hair. Marcia sat cross legged on the kitchen counter as Oma evened out the cut into something neater and scolded the both of them for handling something sharp without permission or supervision. Marcia spent the time chattering at Jordan in what they’d dubbed Staal-speak, a mutant mix of the English they spoke with their parents, the Dutch they learned from Oma and Opa, and the French they were learning at school. The haircut she ended up with was almost identical to Jordan’s, because it wasn’t like Oma had a lot of experience cutting girls’ hair short.

In Eric's muddy hand-me-downs, with her hair trimmed short, it was easy to assume she was a boy. The four of them got called the brothers Staal a few too many times for Ma’s taste, but that was their childhood. No one stopped her from playing ball hockey in the school yard, or ice hockey when it was winter. She wrestled with her brothers and helped Eric with the tractor when she was tall enough to see over the wheel, Jordan sitting in the wheel well and leaning against her leg.

When she finally started growing her hair out again, it was dark red and curly, just like her Oma’s hair. She loved the brightness of it, the way it set her apart as the Staal girl, instead of just being another one of the boys.

Now, she keeps her hair long, and refuses to hear any arguments to cut it. It’s redder than her mother’s strawberry blonde, redder than Jared’s baby hair. It curls its way down her back, in long coils helped by Lindsay’s rollers. They tuck together on the couch the nights before home games, and Lindsay rags Marcia’s hair. The soft blue flannel rags help Marcia’s hair dry in elegant curls rather than the frizzy mess she gets if heat is ever applied to it.

Sometimes, she misses the days when she was mistaken for Jordan’s twin, when they were Jupiter and Mars in the back yard. Most of the time, though, she loves that she will never again be confused for Eric, or Jordan, or Jared.

When she’s feeling sappy, Marcia thinks the greatest gift her parents gave her was her brothers. It’s not often she’ll admit it, but when she does, it’s Jordan who cries.

Now, on a team of men, Marcia has even more brothers. More importantly, though, she finally has sisters in the women of the league.

Her idea of hell consists of being an only child. Thank god she’ll never have to experience it.

Marcia and Jordan text a lot. It’s a side effect of their game schedules, and the distance between Pittsburgh and New York.

They almost never manage to watch each other’s games, and phone calls can be hard to manage for the same reasons they were difficult in juniors. Texts, though, can be answered whenever either of them have time. It can be stupid stuff, like Marcia giving him shit for playing with Sidney, or more serious things like Jordan’s occasional self-confidence crises.

 **JORDY** (8:12 AM): penguins family skate today  
**JORDY** (8:12 AM): we think sid is gonna steal a baby

 **MARCI** (8:13 AM): she would lol don’t let her  
**MARCI** (8:13 AM): rangers are doing one in the next few weeks

 **JORDY** (8:14 AM): you going

 **MARCI** (8:15 AM): if linds wants to lol  
**MARCI** (8:15 AM): we don’t exactly have kids to take

 **JORDY** (8:16 AM): borrow one

 **MARCI** (8:17): lmfao from who  
**MARCI** (8:18 AM): the nieghbors don’t like us

 **JORDY** (8:19 AM): what u do

 **MARCI** (8:19 AM): be gay???  
**MARCI** (8:20 AM): its why we cant foster or adopt  
**MARCI** (8:20 AM): america is so fuckin repressed

 **JORDY** (8:21 AM): linds wants kids  
**JORDY** (8:21 AM): ??

 **MARCI** (8:22 AM): i want kids  
**MARCI** (8:23 AM) no fucking idea how we’re gonna accomplish that tho  
**MARCI** (8:23 AM): but yeah family skate  
**MARCI** (8:24 AM): that’s gonna be a party  
**MARCI** (8:25 AM): i’m being depressing tho what’s your family skate gonna be like

 **JORDY** (8:43 AM): sorry i got distracted by toaster waffles  
**JORDY** (8:44 AM): sid and geno probably gonna make heart eyes for hours  
**JORDY** (8:44 AM): sids gonna steal a baby  
**JORDY** (8:45 AM): gonna eat tons of delicioius delicious food

 **MARCI** (8:45 AM): linds wants to say hi i’m gonna call u

**[CALL WITH JORDY STAAL: 1:17:22]**

When the Penguins come to New York, Jordan begs off of a team dinner in order to see Marcia and Lindsay. For once, Sidney declines her invitation, which means Jordan is planning on a heavy conversation and Marcia braces accordingly.

She was right to prepare, apparently, because Jordan drops his bombshell halfway through dinner.

“If you need a sperm donor, I’d be glad to volunteer,” he says. Marcia just barely manages to avoid spitting her beer over the entire table. Lindsay has gone pale, and she quietly excuses herself from the table.

“What the fuck,” Marcia says flatly. “Oh my god.” She’s glad they chose to eat at home rather than going out; she has to be staring at him unattractively, and she’d really rather that this particular facial expression never end up on Deadspin.

“I, uh, wrote you a letter.”

“We can't let a Staal be short,” he says gruffly, pushing it at her. “Mars. Think about it. It's a standing offer.”

“Heather okay with you fathering another woman's child?”

“Heather knows the score,” Jordy says plainly. “You're my favorite sibling. You could ask for my kidney and I'd give you it in a heartbeat. And you know Lindsay wants a Staal baby with your eyes.”

“And everyone always says we've got the same eyes,” Marcia tries to joke. “ _Jordan,_ ” she'd manages before crying. “I don't--”

“Think about it,” Jordan says. He pulls  her into his chest, and she can tell he is crying too. “The offer won't ever expire. I'd be a great uncle.”

Later Marcia will learn that her brothers had drawn straws for who got to volunteer to be their sperm donor. In the moment, all she will know is that Jordy’s letter is carefully drafted in his cramped handwriting. He concedes a lot to Marcia and Lindsay, giving up all parental rights so his sister can have a child that was all Staal and Ruggles genetics.

Marcia goes to find Lindsay, and they finish dinner, only a little weirded out. Lindsay takes Jordan into the kitchen to do the dishes while Marcia makes up the guest room for Jordan.

When Marcia rejoins them, she pretends not to notice that they’ve both clearly been crying.

“I want to take him up on it,” Lindsay says quietly after they’ve bid Jordan goodnight and started their bedtime routines. She has lotion daubed across her cheekbones and is carefully smoothing it into her skin. She’s not looking at Marcia.

Marcia spits out her mouthful of toothpaste. “It’d be you carrying the baby.”

“Obviously. I mean, I always figured I would, if we didn’t adopt.” Lindsay dips another dot of lotion out of her tub and returns to her small circles. “I know we’ve talked about this before in the abstract, but we could actually have this. This could _work_. No sperm banks, no adoption legalities, no fighting the state of New York to let Canadians have an American kid, or fighting Canada to let us adopt and live abroad, no explaining how your constant travelling won’t keep you from being a good mom...This could work, Marci. We could have a baby.”

“And you’d be okay with having sex with my brother?”

Lindsay grimaces. “Okay. Not that, really. But we could do it like a turkey baster. I’m sure someone in my book club has some kind of information on how to do it.”

“Then Jordan would be our kid’s dad.”

“Genetically, sure. We get a lawyer, make sure everyone knows the score.”

Marcia rinses her mouth and puts her toothbrush down. She moves to stand behind Lindsay and wraps her arms around her wife’s waist.

“You wouldn’t rather it be Eric or Jared? Or me carrying from one of your brothers?”

“You can’t be out that long,” Lindsay says. “And Jordan’s the one who offered.”

Marcia sighs. “Give me some time to think about it? It feels...weird.”

“He said the offer won’t expire.” Lindsay tips her head back against Marcia’s shoulder. “Two weeks.”

“Hm?”

“We’ll talk about it again in two weeks. I’m giving you a deadline so we don’t put it off forever as a conversation.”

Marcia snorts. “You know me too well.”

“Well, I _am_ married to you. I had to have picked up something along the way.”

So she goes, and she thinks. Jordan's letter becomes frayed at the crease with the amount of times she folds and unfolds and refolds it. She thinks about it almost to the point of distraction. She weighs their options, considers their stability and other options.

So when Lindsay sits her down at the kitchen table, a notebook and a pen laid out with their teacups, Marcia has an answer.

Lindsay adds a shot of whiskey to each cup, then looks at Marcia’s face and adds another.

“My gut instinct is to say yes,” Marcia admits, and sips her tea. Lindsay makes it strong, and the whiskey only makes the taste stronger. “I want to say yes. I just don't know about after.”

“That's a problem for future us.”

“Not overplanning the future? Lindsay Staal, i am _shocked_.”

“You're just a terrible influence.”

“And yet you married that terrible influence.”

“Mm.”

“I don't want people to think of incest when they look at our family,” Marcia says finally. “That’s my biggest issue.

Lindsay nods. “Yeah. It won’t be, but it might look that way to the ignorant, a little.”

“So how do we...deal with it?”

“We don’t have to tell anyone. He’s a sperm donor. It’d just be like if we went to a fertility clinic, just more low-tech.”

“It’s still--weird.”

There’s a silence. Lindsay draws on her notepad.

“Let’s do this,” Marcia says. “Let’s have a baby.”

The agreement they come to is this: Jordan will give up all parental rights. He will never try to claim paternity in a court of law. If something happens to Marcia and Lindsay, he will assume guardianship. He will be listed on the birth certificate, and the baby will have access to his medical records. Marcia is never allowed to pay him back; this is his gift. He may put aside money for the baby, but no more than he would for other nieces and nephews. Marcia will not bar him from having a relationship with the baby unless he is a danger to them. Marcia is not allowed to name the baby after him in any way, shape or form. Jordan will never call in a favor based on this.

They write up a contract with a lawyer, have it witnessed and notarized.

Marcia is going to have a baby.

**[Group chat with JORDY, HEATHER, LOML LINDS, MARCI]**

**JORDY** (2:16 AM): I found a rental house in Nova Scotia in a really cute area  
**JORDY** (2:16 AM): I’m gonna see if i can get a hold on it  
**JORDY** (2:18 AM): Oooo the town has a maritime museum  
**JORDY** (2:20 AM): SID SAYS THERE’S THE WORLD’S LARGEST MANATEE STATUE MADE OF BUTTER THERE

 **HEATHER** (2:25 AM): IT IS TWO IN THE GODDAMN MORNING

 **MARCI** (2:33 AM): how’s the snow blocking every runway in the state of New York treating you  
**MARCI** (2:33 AM): also sid is definitely fucking with you

 **JORDY** (2:34 AM): i have wifi and Sid is helping me find rentals in Cole Harbour  
**JORDY** (2:35 AM): i asked sid and she said it’s definitely a big manatee sculpture made of butter

 **LOML LINDS** (2:37 AM): that’s nice I'm taking Marci’s phone and turning mine off now

 **HEATHER** (2:37 AM): 2 AM, JORDAN

 **JORDY** (2:38 AM): it’s a two bedroom with a swimming pool!!  
**JORDY** (2:39 AM): the rental includes four bicylces!!  
**JORDY** (2:39 AM): *bicycles  
**JORDY** (2:40 AM): guys this summer is going to be awesome

After their seasons end, Jordan comes on vacation with them, planning on the entire three month break. Heather comes too, and they talk late into the evenings, Lindsay making sangria and Heather pressing fresh orange juice. They talk, and they shop, and go fishing. Marcia and Jordan set up a game of Risk that they anticipate going at least three days and ending in an actual grudge match on the back lawn, if past experience holds true.

It’s a little weird for Marcia, knowing the endgame here was for her brother to impregnate her wife.  She’s talked to people--Dani, primarily, but women from Lindsay’s lesbian book club as well--and she’s come to terms with the change in family dynamics.

On the other hand, they’d hopefully emerge from this with a baby. They’d so thoroughly discussed and planned this out, and Marcia almost wanted it over.

They track Lindsay’s cycles and buy a few ovulation predictor kits. Heather oversees what she calls the fertilization station, making sure Lindsay drinks enough water that she can pee on the OPK, every day, at two sharp.

“I thought you peed on tests _after_ you were pregnant,” Lindsay grumbles, their fourth day in. “I thought only pregnant women had to pee all the time--oh my god, Heather, no more _fucking Gatorade_.”

“Pee on the stick, Lindsay,” Heather all but hisses and by mutual agreement the Staal siblings take their wives on separate afternoon outings.

It takes a week, but Lindsay’s hormones finally spike.

“Tomorrow morning?” she says, when the four of them are staring at the OPK.

Everyone nods in agreement.

They go out to dinner as a quartet. Lindsay savors a glass of wine.

“If I’m pregnant tomorrow, this may be my last drink for awhile,” she says. Heather grins and tops up Lindsay’s glass. Jordan keeps putting bites of his food onto Lindsay’s plate, and he just beams sunnily at Marcia when she catches him in the act. It’s a companionable, leisurely meal, and they go for a walk afterward. Lindsay and Jordan break off when they pass an ice cream shop; Heather and Marcia keep walking.

“This is surreal,” Heather sighs when they reach the end of the boardwalk.

“Still time to back out,” Marcia replies. She knocks gently on the wooden railing, as if that’ll change Heather’s mind.

“No, I’m just--my boyfriend, who is my high school sweetheart, is a professional athlete and is going to knock up his professional athlete sister’s wife tomorrow morning, and I’m okay with all of this.” Heather pauses, so Marcia waits her out. “I’m actually fucking okay with all of this. Jordan’s nineteen. I didn’t expect my boyfriend to become a parent at nineteen with someone who’s not me.”

“I’m only twenty-one,” Marcia offers.

“I know. I just...we all made it out of Thunder Bay. And here we all are, trying to do what people back home do. All three of you in the NHL--it’s so strange when I think about it. This feels as weird as that, no weirder.”

“You’re really okay with this?”

“I really am. All of you keep asking me that.” Heather takes Marcia’s hand. “I really, really am okay with this. Jordan’s not suddenly going to leave me for Lindsay. We’ve talked about this so much, I’m kind of annoyed the baby isn’t already here; if you were having a baby any other way, Jordan would be just as excited.”

Heather squeezes Marcia’s hand as Jordan and Lindsay catch up to them. They get back to the house and split off into pairs.

In the morning, Lindsay and Heather make breakfast together. Marcia stops Jordan in the hall when he’s coming out of the bathroom, scrubbing a towel through his wet hair.

Marcia gives Jordan a long hug. “I love you,” she says seriously.

“If you ever try to repay the favor, I'm disowning you,” Jordan tells her, but he's smiling. His hair is dripping, dampening her collar. “I told you, Mars, I'd do anything for you. This is easy. I'm glad, and I'm honored.” He holds her tight; they can hear their wives in the other room. “Now get out, it's weird enough to jerk off into a jar without thinking of my sister in the other room.”

Marcia raises an eyebrow. “You know where that’s gonna go, right?”

“Into Lindsay, not you,” he says cheerfully. “You know how cousin Alex always said a nephew is an irreversible reminder that your sibling had sex? Yeah, my nephew is going to be a reminder that my sister _didn’t.”_

“I hate to tell you, but that ship has long sailed.”

“Hush, Mars. You, Jared and Eric are all as pure as the driven snow.” He pauses. “This never gets mentioned at Christmas.”

They both burst out laughing, imagining their brothers trying to restart conversation with their cousins and grandparents after they mention that at the dinner table, right over turkey and potato mash.

Marcia lets go of Jordan and finds Lindsay. After breakfast, they go for a walk down to the smoothie shop in the middle of town.

“Stop freaking out,” Lindsay murmurs, sipping on her straw delicately. “Everything will work out.”

“You're way more zen about this than I would be.”

Lindsay snorts. “I am losing my shit, my love. Only the fact that I want a baby is keeping me from calling my mom and wondering if this means I’ve slept with two Staals by proxy.”

Marcia gags.

Jordan and Heather are gone by the time Marcia and Lindsay return to the house, as are two of the bikes. There’s a note on the door in Heather’s cramped hand:

_we’ll be back at 2, have fun, (don’t?) be safe. Xx H & J_

“Your sister-in-law is remarkably good-humored about this,” Lindsay says, pulling the note down. A little paint flakes off with the tape.

“She’s your sister-in-law too,” Marcia points out. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Marcia sits against the headboard of their bed, and Lindsay leans back against her in the cradle of her legs. They’ve put everything they’ll need on the bedside table--Lindsay handled the things Marcia would really, _really_ rather not touch--and have the DVD player loaded up with Star Trek DVDs.

“So this is weird as fuck,” Lindsay says. She turns to kiss Marcia on the underside of her jaw. “We’re gonna watch about a million episodes of Star Trek, I hope you know.”

“You're gonna have to explain the robot-man to me again.” Marcia rubs her hands over Lindsay’s arms. “You’re still good?”

“Weirded out in theory, willing to work through it for a baby.”

Marcia kisses Lindsay’s cheek. “So, game plan. Get you off, use the syringe--”

“--which I will handle, because you’re squeamish--”

“I think that’s justified!”

Lindsay elbows Marcia. “Then I eat pineapple and leave my hips up, and we watch Star Trek all afternoon--”

“--and we try not to make this awkward or weird when everyone else gets back.”

Lindsay giggles, and tips her head back against Marcia’s shoulder. “Right. So, game on?”

Marcia skims her hand over Lindsay’s belly. “Game on.”

The earliest they can find out if it worked is a week later. Lindsay has an appointment scheduled at a local clinic for a blood test; until then, they can only wait it out.

They take a weekend trip down to New York, setting up camp in Marcia and Lindsay’s apartment. Despite living in New York proper, they’d never much managed to do touristy things. Jordan and Heather gave them an excuse.

Jordan buys them tickets to a tour bus, and they spend the day on top of a double-decker, taking silly photos and stifling laughter as the bus goes by Madison Square Garden. Lindsay insists they stop in at a tiny noodle shop in Chinatown where they can see the noodles being pulled in the kitchen.

None of them acknowledge that this is a distraction before Lindsay visits the doctor for a blood test, but they all know it and keep busy. Heather and Lindsay go to see Phantom of the Opera, leaving Jordan and Marcia to get drunk with a few of the Rangers still in town.

Heather pops down to Pittsburgh for a couple of days and comes back with ginger lozenges and other accouterments from pregnant friends who swear by their home remedies. Jordan had spent the weekend deeply embattled in their long-standing game of Risk, where Marcia was gleefully kicking his ass.

They wait another day, and then Lindsay goes to her doctor, and they have to wait three days for results.

They go back to Cole Harbour, to the rented house with the bikes and the beach.

Lindsay gets a phone call one afternoon when they’re coming home from a walk along the boardwalk; she ducks into the kitchen and the rest of them hold their breath until Lindsay reappears in the doorway.

“It worked,” Lindsay says. “I'm exactly thirteen days pregnant.”

There’s a stunned beat of silence, then Jordy crashes into Lindsay with a whoop, dragging Marcia along with him.

“Staals are lucky,” Jordan crows. Heather punches him in the arm and joins their group hug.

“Don’t jinx it,” she hisses.

They pile together in celebration, the four of them collapsing into a heap on the couch. Jordan is clinging to Marcia, laughing with joy and wonder. Heather grabs Marcia from behind, reaching up to pull Lindsay into the cuddle pile so she can sprawl across all three of their laps.

Marcia presses her palm onto the flat of Lindsay’s belly. Somewhere in there, a ball of cells is dividing again and again, and in nine months it would be a human, fully formed.

Lindsay draws up a nursery plan and a schedule for her doctor’s appointments. Jordan writes down every aspect of his medical history he can think of, and gives it to Lindsay in a sealed manila envelope.

When they go back to New York, they keep busy. Heather helps Marcia clean out their guest room and deconstruct the queen bed there when Jordan goes to the Home Depot to pick up a half-dozen cans of paint. That’s a weekend they spend as a quartet, painting the walls a crisp mint green, before Lindsay’s belly even begins to show. Marcia could afford to hire a decorator, but why do that when you have family? Lindsay calls directions from her perch on a stepstool, Heather harasses Jordan, and Marcia herself tapes the trim and spreads the dropcloth.

Heather uses a sponge to daub delicate clouds around the window-frame, uses a thin paintbrush to stencil in birds. Jordan gets paint everywhere, including in his hair and down the back of his shirt.

They install a murphy bed once the walls dry, folded up in a tidy white cabinet. A cradle finds its way in, a dresser, a changing table. They have the luxury of learning early, but knowing the season will take time away from them, so they prepare now.

Jordan and Heather need to return to Pennsylvania sooner rather than later, but not before the nursery is mostly complete.

They still have a month in the house up in Cole Harbour, so Marcia emails Carey and calls Sidney, so they can all practice together while Lindsay settles into the rhythm of being pregnant.

When the girls find out--Lindsay turns down a glass of Dani’s sangria--they’re just as jubilant.

Marcia feels so, so loved, and knows her child, _their_ child, will be just as loved.

**LOML LINDS** (6:12 PM): when do pregnancy cravings kick in

 **MARCI** (6:15 PM): i think u just want phish phood

 **LOML LINDS** (6:16 PM): i mean…....phish phooooood

 **MARCI** (6:17 PM): is that a hint

 **LOML LINDS** (6:20 PM): we also need toothpaste, toilet paper, dental dams, and like, three bags of frozen peas  
**LOML LINDS** (6:20 PM): and some of those awesome thai noodles?

 **MARCI** (6:24 PM): not a hint, got it

“When are we telling people?” Lindsay asks. It’s been ten weeks, and the season will start soon. Their doctor advised them to keep their cards close to their chest until the second trimester, when miscarriage will be less likely. They have a due date, they’ve heard the heartbeat; it’s getting more and more real every day that this is happening.

“I think we can tell our parents now,” Marcia says. “In person, though, I want to be there when we do.”

Lindsay rubs over her belly. “Yeah. First grandbaby for everyone.”

Marcia rests her chin on her hands, watching Lindsay move around the kitchen. “We can be more casual about it with future babies.”

“Let’s get this one out first, hon.” Lindsay lays a kiss on the top of Marcia’s head; Marcia wraps her arm around Lindsay’s waist and holds her there.

“We’re building a family.”

“Yeah, we are.”

“I want everyone to know.”

“Me too.” Lindsay cards her fingers through Marcia’s hair. “Call your ma. We’ll go visit right before training camp.”

**[CALL WITH MA 00:17:45]**

**MA** (4:15 PM): you said the 22nd, right?

 **MARCI** (4:15 PM): yeah, we should land around 3 pm  
**MARCI** (4:16 PM): we can rent a car, i think

 **MA** (4:17 PM): nonsense, i’ll pick you up when i drop jared off for practice

 **MARCI** (4:18 PM): thanks, ma

They put together a little plan, centering around a scrapbook and some photos. Marcia leans against the doorway to the kitchen when Lindsay puts the shoebox on the table.

“Thanks for helping me, Linda,” Lindsay says in her rough Dutch. “I'm terrible at picking photos out, and I want this present to go well.”

Marcia waits until Ma calls for Marcia to make herself useful; Marcia makes them all strong black tea and slides the mugs across the table before she herself sits. Ma had already taken out the first handful of photos and fanned them across the table, so Marcia stirs sugar into each cup and waits. She knows when Ma finds the photo they'd taken before flying up to Thunder Bay, because there's a sharp intake of breath.

“Lindsay?”

“Yeah,” Lindsay says, laying her hand over her belly, eyes damp a little with tears. “Yeah, Oma.”

Ma whoops and throws her arms around Lindsay, then pulls Marcia into a hug.

“Henry,” Ma yells. “Henry, get down here!”

Lindsay shifts aside some of the photos and retrieves a tiny pair of mint green baby booties, and copies of their first sonogram.

That’s the first thing Pa sees when he comes sprinting into the kitchen. He stammers, trips, and then bursts into tears.

The rest of the family converges the next day, Staals and Ruggles and family friends. Heather’s family is there, and Alaina comes to visit. Grandparents from both sides arrive and take over Pa’s office as their receiving room to see grandchildren and new spouses and girlfriends. The Staal house is full to overflowing with family, and Marcia can’t wait to bring their baby into this noisy, loving house.

Marcia helps Pa set up the trestle tables in the yard so they have enough room for everyone to sit down to eat. It’s a mess of family trekking in and out of the house, with pots and plates and utensils; Marcia is sent to fetch Grandmamma, and Jordan takes Oma’s elbow to escort them to sit at the head of the tables.

Lunch is a raucous affair, with people constantly shuffling between seats and shouting conversations down the table. Lindsay and Marcia hold hands underneath the table, which makes eating a little awkward.

They’re done eating but no one has made a move to start cleaning up when Lindsay stands. The conversations around them hush. Marcia shouts, and the rest of the conversations quiet.

“We’ve got an announcement,” Lindsay yells, and the yard bursts into the announcement song, led merrily by the youngest cousins. When the last line fades away, Lindsay is laughing. “An informative statement,” she corrects. “Marcia and I are pregnant with our first baby.”

There’s a pause, then Jared whoops and nearly tackles Marcia to the ground in celebration. The cousins are more gentle with Lindsay, but Marcia is treated to the kind of rough-housing only family completely unafraid of injury can give.

Their immediate family is quickly filled in on the situation by Jordan, and while Jared seems to take it at face value, Marcia can sense Eric starting to brew up into one of his sulks.

She corners him when the grandparents have swept Lindsay off to Pa’s office to talk pregnancy plans.

“Okay, your issue. What is it?”

Eric looks hangdog. “I don’t--why didn’t you ask me? I would have--I’d have helped. I can--if you want another baby, I can help.”

Marcia pats Eric on the arm. “I’m going to turn you down,” she says bluntly. “Not because I don’t love you, and not because Jordan’s my favorite brother.”

He opens his mouth to protest but stops when she raises an eyebrow.

“I love you, Icky, but Jordan offered and it took us a long time to sort this out. I don’t want you offering just because Jordan did, and I don’t want Jared to feel like he has to offer too. You’re going to be an uncle, and a damn good one, and that will be the same relationship Jordan has with my baby, okay?”

Eric still looks sad. “You didn’t even ask me.”

“I didn’t ask Jordan; he offered. I know the three of you talked about this a little, but...it doesn’t matter, Eric. You’ll both be uncles. Can you just--can you be happy for me?”

At this, Eric does brighten a little. “I guess I’ll have a niece to spoil.”

“Whoa, slow up there. We don’t know if it’ll be a boy or a girl.”

“It’ll be a girl,” he says confidently. “Come on, with moms like you and Linds? It’ll be a girl.”

**MARCI** (11:12 AM): this is your eviction notice

 **CALLAHAN** (11:15 AM): ginger noooo what did i doooooo  
**CALLAHAN** (11:15 AM): is it the wasabi i left in the fridge did linds mistake it for guac again

 **MARCI** (11:16 AM): well we need your bedroom for the baby

 **CALLAHAN** (11:17 AM): OH MY GOD CONGRATS  
**CALLAHAN** (11:17 AM): I’M GONNA BE THE BEST UNCLE

 **MARCI** (11: 18 AM) You’ll have to fight jordy for it lol  
**MARCI** (11:19 AM) And eric  
**MARCI** (11:19 AM): And jared, come to think of it  
**MARCI** (11:20 AM): And both of Lindsay’s brothers

 **CALLAHAN** (11:22 AM): I’M GONNA BE THE BEST NON-FAMILY UNCLE  
**CALLAHAN** (11:27 AM): DID YOU KNOW THEY MAKE CALLAHAN 24 JERSEYS IN SIZE NEWBORN  
**CALLAHAN** (11:28 AM): I’VE ORDERED FOUR

 **MARCI** (11:32 AM): if my baby wears any number it’s gonna be mine shitass

 **CALLAHAN** (11:33 AM): GINGER YOU WOUND ME  
**CALLAHAN** (11:34 AM): AS IF YOUR KID ISN’T GOING TO HAVE EVERY JERSEY ON THE ROSTER

The season restarts, as hockey seasons do. It’s different from the previous year because there's no rookie camp and this time around Marcia's a little more worried about her wife.

The guys are fucking excited about Marcia becoming a parent. The collective Rangers roster isn’t all that settled; the Rangers organization is not sentimental and has no players who have been on the team longer than four years. Marcia is the first to really settle into New York, the first to seriously put down roots. They all know Jagr won't stay forever; the rest of them know exactly how expendable they are. Marcia has decided she'll be staying until they push her out, or that she's ready to deal with the consequences of her own choice.

There's moderate team-wide panic for about six hours until Marcia spells it out for them that she's not the pregnant one, come _on_ , guys.

Then she's bombarded with advice (from the older guys) and gifts (from the younger guys). She practices with some of the guys in the month before training camp starts; her practice stall looks like a miniaturized Rangers gift shop exploded on it half the time.

Lundqvist gives her no less than five Lundqvist jerseys, smug Swedish asshole that he is. It figures that he's friends with the Sedin twins, because smug asshole Swedish twins are all bros, apparently. Girardi at least produces Staal jerseys from Pittsburgh and Carolina, smirking the whole way.

“Is your kid going to own anything but Rangers gear?” Jagr asks in concern after a pile of baby-sized jerseys spills over into his stall.

“At this point, not really,” Marcia admits. “If I get traded in the next six months, shit’s gonna be awkward.”

Jagr must take that to heart because the next day he's smirking and her locker is piled high with an ungodly number of diapers and a single Jagr jersey. On top of the pile is a miniature pair of skates.

It's one of the most weirdly sweet gifts she's ever gotten.

Things die down once Lindsay passes into her second trimester. By the season is a couple of weeks in the Rangers are heading into their first long road trip.

They're playing the ‘Canes, so Marcia's looking forward to dinner with Eric and Tanya, and skyping their parents.

The game against the ‘Canes is exactly the kind of hockey Marcia fell in love with, and the Rangers scrape out a win.

They clump down the hall, cheering with the win. Marcia's ducking out of a D-Corps dinner but she's promised to meet them for drinks by the time she plops down in her stall to get her gear off.

Marcia's phone chimes, the three-bell tone that means Lindsay’s called and Marcia has missed it. She hits redial, taking the chirps the guys closest to her throw her way.

Marcia barely registers the howl ripping its way from her throat as she doubles over. She feels numbness creeping its way from her heels up to her hips, snaking towards her core. She does register someone's arms wrapping around her, someone else picking her phone off of the locker room floor.

“Call the trainers,” the person holding her shouts. It's Jags, she recognizes vaguely. She crumples into him, and howls again, fingers scrabbling at the arms around her chest. “ _Shit_ , Staal, what's going on?”

The person with her phone murmurs something. Marcia can't be bothered to figure out what they've said.

Jags pushes her until she's facing him. She's an inch taller than him, but he puts a hand to the back of her neck and draws her face to rest in the crook of his neck. She cries, and he rubs a hand over her shoulder. When he slowly moves to sit on the floor, she slumps into the hold. The locker room is chaos around them, half the team shouting and the other half having run for help.

Someone has alerted the Hurricanes, apparently, because Eric is kneeling next to her, breathing as if he'd sprinted here from the home locker room.

“Mars,” he says, and she can only sob in reply. “Jagr, what the hell-”

“She got a call from her wife.” Marcia more feels Jags talking rather than hears it. She also feels when Eric sucks in a breath. “She was in hysterics when Sauer picked up her phone. It’s completely shattered.”

“Mars, is Lindsay okay?” Eric asks. “Marcia, hey. Mars, look at me.”

Marcia shakes her head, but she reaches for Eric. Jagr lets her go. “Blood,” she croaks and shifts into Eric's lap. “She was--Icky, my _baby_.”

The room seems to collectively inhale.

“Mars, is--is _meiske_ alright?” he fumbles his English, and switches to Dutch. “ _Is everything alright_?”

 _“I don’t know. I’m scared_ ,” she tells him, grateful for the rough Dutch of their childhood.

“ _I am too, little sister_.” He rocks a little, bringing her with him. “ _You can cry, I’m here_.”

There are footsteps behind them. “Staal, what's--uh, _Eric_ Staal, what the _fuck_ is going on with my defenseman? The hell are you doing here?”

“Her wife miscarried,” Eric tells Coach. His voice is thick with tears. “Marcia’s daughter just died.”

Marcia isn't going to be a mom. That's all that matters. Her baby is _gone_. She screams again, and again, and again, until she has no voice left to scream with.

She registers Eric helping her stand. She lets him wrestle her jersey and remaining gear off. She's wrapped in his sweatshirt, one of the ones that never really stop smelling like home, like sod, like the industrial laundry detergent their mom buys in a twenty-liter drum. There’s probably going to be a photo of her on Deadspin in a Hurricanes sweatshirt, and she can’t even bring herself to be annoyed at that.

She doesn't go to the hotel with her team. Eric takes her to his home, and she sleeps fitfully on his couch. He sits up with her, stroking her hair. She can hear Tanya talking to someone on the phone in the kitchen.

In the morning, she'll find out that Jordan ditched his team in fucking Philadelphia, of all places, and drove to the hospital in New York where Lindsay had been taken. Jared had gotten their moms on the soonest flights, but there was nothing direct. They wouldn't arrive for hours yet.

Jordan had been the closest, and he had gone. Apparently, Sidney had covered for him as long as she could. Marcia was grateful to her, a small moment of relief amongst the deep-set ache she felt.

Eric gets her to the airport, and she takes a commercial flight into New York. In one of Eric’s hoodies and a pair of Tanya’s leggings, no one looks at her twice. She gets into a cab and makes her way towards her family.

The hospital had already confirmed the, miscarriage, and decided to keep Lindsay overnight. Marcia signs in, finds Lindsay sleeping, and goes to find her brother.

In the waiting room, Jordan looks pale and tired. Marcia supposes she looks much the same. He slumps forward, resting his head on her shoulder.

“Fuck,” he says, and she thinks that about covers it.

Marcia thanks God for Heather Dysievick. By the time Lindsay is discharged from the hospital, Heather has flown in from Pittsburgh, and she manages to coordinate everyone. She maneuvers Jordan, Marcia, and Lindsay onto the couch, settled in with heavy blankets and a stockpile of tissues. She collects their moms from the airport, starts a giant pot of groentesoep, and fields off calls from their agents.

“Marcia” prepares a simple statement via Rangers PR, which will be echoed by the Hurricanes and the Penguins: the Staal family was suffering a family emergency, and were grateful for well-wishes and respect for their privacy. It’s a statement constructed by Heather and edited by Linda Staal. It won’t stop a deluge of questions if it’s needed, but it will give them time. For now, though, they have a day or two to wade through the grief.

Lindsay sounds defeated when she tells them what the doctor had said. Their baby, too little to have become a boy or a girl, or have been given any name but _hope_ , had been dead for over a week by the time Lindsay found out. Lindsay had been carrying a corpse the last time Marcia saw her, and they never knew. That’s the worst part; Marcia had brought home a bundle of Rangers onesies, and their baby had already been dead.

Jordan pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes in a deep, shaky breath. Lindsay curls tighter into a ball, Marcia rubbing circles on her wife’s back and Heather gently carding fingers through Lindsay’s hair. Their mothers are holding hands on the loveseat, holding back tears of their own.

Jordan pulls Marcia tighter. They don’t speak, even when their mothers move to the kitchen. Heather spoons up tighter behind Marcia and presses her hands into the curve of Marcia’s waist. Lindsay is huddled across their collective laps, clinging to Jordan’s free hand. Marcia presses her hand to the back of Lindsay’s neck. She cries with her face tucked into her brother’s neck, feels Lindsay’s own tears dampening Marcia’s jeans.

She wakes up hours later, not sure when she fell asleep. She feels the salt crusted around her eyes and tracking down her cheeks; only Jordan is there with her.

“I know I don’t have the right to mourn as much as you,” Jordan says quietly when he realizes she’s awake. “He was never going to be my son.”

Marcia doesn’t know when they decided their baby was a boy. “He was your nephew. You helped make him exist.”

“It’s not my loss--”

“It is,” Marcia insists. She pushes at his chest. “Jordan-- _Jupiter_. Icky’s sad. Jarjar’s sad. You think I haven’t seen Ma staring at the nursery whenever I walk past? It’s your loss more than theirs. Fuck. _Fuck_!”

Jordan wraps his arms around her.

“We were going to be happy,” she tells him, and he nods. “And now--how do I play? How do--how do we do anything, now?”

“Same way as we always have.” She can feel her brother’s breath and his heartbeat, and wonders if her baby would have had a brother like she had Jordan. It hurts. “Pick a point, start moving. When we get there, pick another. Keep moving. Keep going.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Me either, Mars. But you can’t let this kill you.”

“I don’t know if I know how to do anything else.”

[**AAMFT** ](https://www.aamft.org/iMIS15/AAMFT/Content/consumer_updates/grieving_the_loss_of_a_child.aspx)> Grieving the Loss of a Child > _How can I help myself_?

It can feel like the loss of a child is the end of the world, and it’s perfectly alright to feel like that. With time, the pain will lessen and you will begin to create a different future for yourself and your spouse. Expect to feel a wide array of emotions and symptoms; this is all normal for an intense grieving process, and the intensity of feelings will change as time passes.

The best thing for you to do right now is to seek the company of others who understand. Talking may be hard, but many find it helpful to work through the complex emotions they are feeling. A few suggestions:

  * Keep a journal. Track your emotions and try to put what you’re feeling into words.
  * Talk about your child. Though it may be painful, it can help you find closure in the future your child might have had, and in determining how to reorient your life post-loss.
  * Take time to do a familiar activity with people close to you. It might be difficult to find the motivation, but returning to a status quo can help the healing process.
  * Join a support group. Other parents are going through similar processes, and it can help you and your spouse feel less alone.
  * Seek therapy. Grief can fester, which can only make you feel worse.



 


	6. Five

#  **Five**

[Iodine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9UKGK4AosY): ( _we want to recover but we don’t want to learn/keep breaking what’s been fixed a thousand times/and give me some more of that iodine_ )

Of all her brothers, Jared is the one Marcia worries about the most. She's sure that’s true of the others too--Jared is the baby of the family.

In Sudbury, Jared lived with her, the closest one-on-one any of the Staal siblings had since before Jordan was born and until Marcia and Jordan spent their summers together as adults.

Marcia knew Jared had talent, but she also knew he wasn't as good as the rest of them. Privately, she wished he'd taken the defense path like her, had become her partner. She could have pushed him harder, carried him further, instead of trapping him in AHL limbo. She could have targeted his weaknesses and reinforced them, taught him how to play a good defensive game.

She doesn't know who carries the crushing weight of expectation worse: her, with the eyes of the NHL waiting for her to fail, or him, with the knowledge of the Staal dynasty expecting him to succeed.

When her three brothers play for Carolina, she almost wishes she were there with them. They've never played all together, the four of them. She's sure it would be hell on skates, if they took the ice together. They play against her, the three of them in a line. She’d need a partner, and they’d need a goalie, but they could find those easy enough. Maybe she could drag Lindsay back onto the ice and they could put Heather in goal.

They’re a team, the Staals and their spouses: there’s Eric and Tanya, Marci and Linds, Jordan and Heather, and Jared when he settles down. Between the seven of them--or eight, eventually--there is nothing they can’t take on, can’t do. Their lives are tangled up in hockey, bound up in stick tape and split lips, in rubber pucks and the crisp smell of ice.

Three years past her draft, Marcia starts wondering if there are going to be changes in the NHL. Following the 2005 draft, more than a handful of female players put their names forward, but no woman drafted in 2006 went higher than third-round, and none played a single game with their NHL team. Marcia got her hopes up with the 2007 draft, when Hilary Knight went second-round to Boston, before deferring for NCAA. She starts wondering if the three women playing--Sidney, Dani, herself--are flashes in the pan. Carey makes the Canadiens roster as backup, and their groupchat tension eases. She wonders what would have happened in Jared was her younger sister instead of her younger brother.

But then the rest of 2007 happens, and Marcia leaves that kind of worry to Dani and Sid.

That doesn’t mean Marcia doesn’t worry. It just means she narrows her worry down to her immediate world; it doesn’t mean she won’t keep an eye on Jared when she can. It doesn’t mean she won’t try to ease his path if she can.

It’s what sisters _do._

It’s like everything becomes too sharp after Jordan goes back to Pittsburgh. Heather stays a couple of extra days, but eventually she and Ma and Mama Ruggles need to return home. It’s October, normally Marcia’s favorite month of the year, and she hates it. Everything feels too sharp, too bright, too loud.

Lindsay sleeps a lot. Marcia spends as much time as she can on ice. At home, she crawls into bed with Lindsay and pretends not to notice how fucking exhausted she is, no matter how much she sleeps.

The only thing that’s still easy is hockey. She throws herself into training and spending time with Dan, anything to keep herself away from home.

The D-corps are a little surprised when she’s suddenly game for every night out, every bar hop, every optional team-bonding activity, but home is just too quiet. Even with the radio on and Lindsay sleeping in the bedroom, even with Egg curling around her ankles, she feels alone.

The silence in their home is oppressive.

She and Lindsay fight, brutal screaming things where Lindsay targets soft spots Marcia barely knew she had. Marcia spits back, surprised at the bile that’s been simmering in her gut. Their neighbors must hate them.

They get a baby catalogue in the mail. Lindsay throws it in the kitchen trash. Marcia fishes it out and dumps it in the shredder.

Two weeks after, and it feels like everything is scorched and hollow around them.

Lindsay loses weight. She sleeps too much, always asleep when Marcia makes it home, from practices or games or a road trip. She stops going to book club, and then she stops going to classes. Marcia didn’t even notice until one of their mutual friends calls to make sure Lindsay is alive.

Marcia comes home from a practice to find Lindsay has an overnight bag laid out on the bed. “I'm going to see my mom,” she says quietly. “Until after Christmas. I can’t...I can’t be here, not with you gone so much.”

Marcia looks around the apartment and sees what Lindsay means, all the spaces that are empty between them. She sees where a baby would have fit. She sees the places Ma and Heather had stayed, the places they weren't now.

She lies down on the half of the bed not filled with Lindsay's overnight bed. She closes her eyes.

Lindsay rustles around the room for a few minutes while Marcia feigns sleep. Finally her bag is zippered shut and the bedroom door closes.

Marcia rolls over and hears the silence of their apartment. For the first time in her life, Marcia is alone, and she doesn’t know when someone else will be home.

It’s a hollowing feeling. She curls around Lindsay’s pillow, tries to ignore the silence, and fails to sleep.

Hockey is still easy. Her muscles know what to do when lifting, when skating, when chasing down the puck. She checks rougher, as rough as she can manage. Dan bookends her targets or draws attention so she can work unimpeded. Her numbers have never been better.

Jagr pulls her aside after a particularly brutal game against Boston where she’d gotten into two separate fights. They’d scraped out a win, though, so she’s not sure why he’s pulling the concerned act.

“Is...everything okay?” Jagr asks. He’s more and more a friend, but she’s not particularly interested in anyone trying to act like her dad. “Marcia?”

It’s a little startling to hear her name; the guys pretty exclusively call her Ginger or Staalsy. The D-Corps calls her Hillary or Clinton when they feel like getting smacked, but no one on the Rangers ever call her Marcia.

“I’m fine,” she says, feeling both pissed and wrongfooted. She goes back to working her towel through her wet hair.

“You’ve been playing rough.”

“Been working, though.”

“If you need anything,” Jagr starts. She snorts.

“You worry about your goals, grandpa. I’ll be fine.”

She does make a vague effort to avoid penalties where she can from then on. She doesn’t stop her new routine of going out and staying out. She’d really rather not be alone if she can help it.

She starts to clean out the apartment. The diapers she donates to the hospital; the tiny onesies and jerseys go anonymously to Goodwill. She deconstructs and boxes up the crib, and donates that to a women’s shelter along with the changing table and the rocking chair. She pulls the Murphy bed down from the wall and makes it up, hangs the ugly curtains their moms had bought last year. She tweaks the curtain rod so they cover the mural Heather had painted.

Their home had existed before a baby. It would continue to exist in the absence of one.

She does keep a single box. Inside she folds tiny Staal jerseys and a chenille blanket so soft she wants to cry. She adds Jagr’s tiny skates and the legal contract she’d drawn up with Jordan.

Then she seals the box and hides it on the top shelf of the linen closet.

It doesn’t make the apartment less empty, but at least she can start to pretend life has at least the potential to return to normal.

When they play the Habs, Carey doesn’t say anything. They greet each other after the game, like they always do when their teams play each other. Carey offers to take Marcia out for a drink, which she declines. It’s not strange, not now--Marcia has turned down drinks in New York  with the other NHL women ever since Lindsay got pregnant. Carey lets her go easily. It’s too easy; Marcia should have known.

Carey is lurking at Marcia’s front door by the time Marcia finally gets home from media.

“Oh my god,” Marcia says, and unlocks the door with her keys. “Can I help you?”

“Usually we hang after games.”

Marcia opens the door and heads in, not waiting for Marcia. “Well, if you’re coming in, lock the door behind you.” She dumps her purse onto the side table, spills her keys alongside it.

Carey follows, keeping her purse tucked between her arm and torso. “Where’s Lindsay?”

“Not here,” Marcia snaps. “Can I help you, or are you just here to judge my life choices.”

Carey sits at Marcia’s kitchen table. “ _Marci_.”

“Oh my god, it’s fine.”

“It’s really, really not. Does anyone know?”

“Know what?”

“Even you are not this dense.” Carey eyes Marcia carefully, like that will get Marcia to spill the sort of secrets she’ll take to her grave or her marriage bed. “Are you talking to anyone? Your team? Your brothers?”

“Why would they need to know?”

“Jesus, and I thought the boys were obtuse.”

Marcia slams open the freezer and dumps ice into her glass. “I’m having a vodka and coke. Either drink with me and shut up, or get out.”

Carey raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “You won.”

“Yup, celebration all up in here. You drinking or not?”

“Not too much. Early flight.”

Dani starts texting Marcia, and calling. Carey must have tipped her off.

Marcia doesn’t answer, if she can reasonably avoid it. Too often she’ll hear Dani’s daughter in the background, or Marinette’s voice. She really can’t deal with happy families right now. When they play the Canucks, Dani is waiting for her outside the locker room. Marcia isn’t ashamed to admit she cashed in a favor with Lundqvist to distract Dani.

Hank raises an eyebrow when she cashes in, but he goes for the Sedins in boisterous Swedish. It takes him three minutes to collect every Swede from both rosters and invite himself over to Henrik Sedin’s house. Dani definitely knows Marcia is avoiding her, but then the Czechs splinter off, yelling boisterously, and Marcia slips off with the old marrieds of the team.

She doesn’t go home for Christmas. It’s the first time she hasn’t been home for the holidays; not even Jared texting her in more and more despondent ways makes her cave.

She brings a store-bought pie to Lundqvist’s Christmas party. She can feed herself, but there’s nothing she can cook that she’d be proud to bring to a teammate’s Christmas party.

Marcia kisses Hank hello, a quick buss on the cheek, and then she has to make the rounds of all her other teammates. Jagr looks worried, but she sweeps past him to collect a glass of wine and a plate of food before he can stop her.

“Where’s Lindsay?” Dan demands when he finds her sitting in a corner. The look on his face suggests he already knows. She’s getting really, really fucking tired of that question.

“In Thunder Bay.”

“Without you?”

She shrugs and lifts a forkful of lumpy sweet potato mash to her mouth. “I needed to be here, and she didn’t.”

“Staal--”

Marcia stares at him, her eyes going flinty. To his credit, Dan doesn’t flinch back much. “I’m not doing this right now.”

“When, then?”

“The first of never.” Marcia downs the rest of her wine. “Good seeing you, Dan. I think Hank is trying to get my attention.”

“Marcia--”

“No. Goodnight.”

Jordan and Sidney corner her after Rangers morning practice in Pittsburgh, two weeks after Christmas. Marcia was planning on a nap and lunch with Dan, but it’s increasingly apparent that Dan was in on this little ambush plan when he’s suddenly nowhere to be found.

She makes a mental note to cut his laces and fill his travel bag with itching powder.

Jordan bundles Marcia into the backseat of his car. Sidney sits shotgun.

Marcia folds her arms across her chest; she’s still in her sweatshirt and jeans, and she’ll need to collect her gameday suit from the hotel. She still hasn’t had a chance to redo her braids, and she has to nap.

Sidney is texting someone. Marcia shifts and kicks the back of her seat. Sidney doesn’t react, and Jordan pulls into his driveway.

There’s a bag of Thai takeout on the kitchen table, which means this was way, way planned. Jordan hates Thai, and especially the eggplant curry he spoons onto a plate for Marcia.

She glares sullenly at the plate as Sidney and Jordan chat, staunchly pretending they’re not being assholes.

“I thought the girls didn’t interfere in each other’s personal lives,” Marcia snipes, finally fed up. “Wasn’t that a rule you put down, Crosby?”

Sidney doesn’t flinch. “I”m not here as an NHL woman. I’m here because Jordan asked me to be a neutral party, and your other option was Flower.”

Marcia rounds on Jordan. “And you--what right do you have--”

“You’re my sister and I’m worried about you--”

“You have _no_ right-”

“I have _every_ right,” Jordan roars, and Marcia stops cold. “I’m worried about you! If not me, then who? I'm’ scared of what’s happening to you. You’re falling apart.”

“I’m playing well.”

“Your penalty minutes--”

“It’s a rough game! Defense players get high penalty minutes!” This is something Marcia knows how to do, fight with Jordan. They were the closest of the Staal siblings, but that just meant they had more ammunition when they began to tear into each other.

It’s brutal, wildly reminiscent of every argument they got into as kids. They slip into Dutch almost without realizing, tearing into old wounds with relish. It feels good to spit bile and rage out instead of limiting herself to body checks on ice, and Jordan gives as good as he gets. It escalates until Sidney pushes herself back from the table. The screech of her chair against the tile startles the Staals into silence.

Sidney steps between them, hands held out placatingly.

“I don’t understand some of what you’re saying, but I’m gonna say this. You’re both hurting. Don’t hurt each other more.”

Marcia hadn’t noticed the tears leaking from her eyes while she yelled, but she feels them now, hot on the skin of her cheeks. Jordan isn’t crying, but his face has gone splotchy. “Just...don’t, either of you,” she tells them, feeling her shoulders slump. She takes a step back.

“If not us, who?” Sidney asks levelly. “It’s been three months, Marcia, and you haven’t asked us for help.”

“Maybe I don’t need help.”

“Bullshit,” Jordan snaps out. Sidney doesn’t even look at him, just pushes at his chest a little. Jordan falls silent.

“I’m dealing,” Marcia says into the expectant silence.

“You’re not,” Jordan insists. “Let us _help_.”

Marcia sits back down. She pulls a crushed Clif bar out of her jacket pocket and puts her head on the table. She takes small bites of it, sighing heavily. “Goddamn it, Jordy,” she says.

“I know.” Jordan’s voice is quiet. He wrings his hands a little. “I just miss you. Ma missed you at Christmas.” His dimples quirk in his cheeks. “Jared and Eric arm wrestled over who got your pecan pie.”

She snorts. “What, Lindsay didn’t punch you for it?”

There’s a pause. “You know she was there?” Jordy asks.

Sidney is looking back and forth between them, but she doesn’t say anything.

“The Ruggles have done Christmas with us for the past six years,” Marcia points out. “Come on. Of course she was there.” She takes another bite of her Clif bar and speaks through the mouthful of sticky crumbs. “S’why I didn’t come home.”

Jordan takes his seat back at the table. “Oh. We thought--we thought you were mad we still let her come.”

Marcia snorts. “That’s not--I’m not mad at Lindsay. I just--I can’t be what she needs right now. She needs to be with her mom. I just--I miss her, is all. Shit sucks right now.”

Sidney takes a step back from the table and lets them have a moment, brother and sister.

“Sorry if I handled this bad,” Jordy says.

“As if you’d have done it any other way.”

“At least eat your stupid eggplant curry?” Jordy prods. She sticks her tongue out at him and takes his plate as well.

Dan moves himself into her spare bedroom before she can really process what’s happening. He just follows her home after the road trip, and then he never really leaves. She doesn’t quite catch on until he brings over another box of stuff because she’s just been grateful to have someone human in the apartment.

“Easier than finding real estate in New York,” Dan tells her cheerfully when she asks him what he thinks he’s doing. He’s got a duffel bag laid out on her Murphy bed, and he’s shuffled the remaining few boxes of baby stuff to the back of the closet.

Egg chirps from the sunny patch on the bed, already settled in with one of Dan’s t-shirts. She’s chewing on the collar the way she does to Marcia’s own clothes, so she supposes Egg has adopted Dan as a member of their family.

“And we can carpool!”

Marcia raises an eyebrow. “If you leave your stinky shit in my car, I’m abandoning it by the side of the road. And then I’m selling all the shit you’ve left here on e-Bay.”

Dan cackles. “There’s my favorite Ginger. Hey, come on, I feel like sushi for my housewarming dinner.”

“Sorry, _your_ housewarming dinner?”

“I’ve just moved in, haven’t I?” Dan beams and throws his suit bags into the closet. “I’m making the house warm, and I demand sushi.”

“The fuck is warm about sushi?” she demands, but she gets her keys regardless.

Dan pays for dinner and calls it rent money. She punches him in the arm and makes him promise to do some chores around the house.

She also mocks him endlessly when he makes her kill the spider in the shower.

The D-Corps are her guys, even if their ranks fluctuate a little with injury and shifting lines. With Dan there, Marcia’s home becomes the unofficial D-Corps crash pad after long practices; almost always someone follows them back to play chel or steal Marcia’s food. The apartment fills with people, and Jagr starts wandering by when he gets lonely in his own apartment two floors up.

Marcia and Dan are solid, and she only feels like he’s babying her a little. She’d always thought a good d-pair should feel like a steady marriage, and while she’d never meant it quite so literally, Dan’s presence is reassuring. He’s not as overbearing as her brothers, but he’s as close a friend as she’s ever had beyond Lindsay.

This is a different side of being a pro hockey player that she’s never really seen before. Sure, she’s always loved a good party and a strong drink, but she’s also loved coming home to Lindsay. She’d had more in common with the handful of old marrieds on the team: she’d party on the road, but in New York she’d cut nights out short.

She doesn’t pick up like the guys do. Sex would be fun, and she’d love to blow off a little steam, but that was something she’d only ever shared with Lindsay. Things might be rocky now, but she was certain it would come back together.

Marcia Staal was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a cheater.

“Holy _shit,_ ” someone shouts as Marcia is getting out of the shower. “Look at the cat!”

Lundqvist looks vaguely put out. “They’re in my bag _._ ”

Marcia plods over and, sure enough, there’s a [mama cat](http://www.lovemeow.com/stray-cat-1819978305.html) in Lundqvist's gear bag, licking a very newborn kitten clean. The cat looks okay with the team surrounding her, but the kitten is making indignant squeaks at its recent entrance into the world.

“ _Oh, hello_ ,” she murmurs quietly in Dutch. She yanks a clean sweatshirt over her head and settles in to sit. “ _Did Hank’s bag smell very nice? Did you think this was nice and safe?_ ”

She gently pats Mama Cat’s belly. Mama Cat pauses in licking her sole newborn to look at Marcia.

 _“Have you more babies for us?_ ” she asks, letting Mama Cat sniff her hand. Switching back to English, she calls out to the room at large. “She’s probably got a couple more kittens to go if this is the only one. Anyone have spare towels?”

“Can you get them out of my bag?” Hank asks plaintively.

“Not easily. When our barn cat gave birth, she slept in Ma’s laundry hamper. We tried to move her about four times, but that was where she was going to nurse her babies, goddamnit.”

Steve Valiquette wanders over and dumps a wad of towels into Marcia’s lap. He gives a clean Rangers t-shirt and sweatpants to Hank. “Sorry, dude.”

“Is everyone just going to let kittens be born in my bag?”

“You’ll get it back in a couple of weeks when they’re old enough to be moved,” Dubinsky says. He gives Marcia a knowing look; she knows he also grew up in the country, and probably ran into a few kitten births as well.

Mama Cat stands up and, yup, that’s another kitten starting to slide out. Marcia strokes Mama Cat’s head and murmurs to her in Dutch baby-talk. Dubinsky hisses out a breath, and after a long minute where more of their teammates gather around, there’s a tiny white kitten covered in embryonic goo sitting in Hank’s spare helmet.

Hank looks resigned. He’s now dressed in Valiquette’s clothes; thankfully, they’re close enough to the same size the clothes aren’t ridiculous on him, though it is strange to see him in Valiquette’s number.

“What’s going on?” one of the trainers calls.

“Kittens,” Hank says tiredly. “In my helmet.”

“Sorry, _what_?”

Marcia tunes out of Hank and Dubinsky trying to explain the situation and focuses on wriggling a towel under Mama Cat and the two babies.

It takes about an hour, but in the end there are four squeaking kittens and one very smug Mama Cat. They’ve taken to calling her Vezina, much to Hank’s annoyance.

He can’t actually be all that annoyed since he lets takes Vezina and the babies (lovingly named Art, Calder, Byng and Smythe, all pending gender determination) home in his gear bag and texts Marcia updates incessantly.

It’s a little adorable and a lot hilarious. The Rangers PR team collectively shits their pants and starts a twitter account for pictures of the team with Vezina and the kittens.

There are a _lot_ of pictures of the team with Vezina and the kittens.

Hank’s girlfriend does a lot of the care, just because of how many trips the team takes. But there are quite a few photos of Hank sprawled on the floor inelegantly, with a pile of kittens waddling over him.

Hank adopts Mama Vezina and the littlest baby kitten, tiny Smythe. Art and Calder are adopted together by one of Hank’s neighbors as a gift for their daughter. That leaves little Lady Byng looking for a home.

Marcia is weak, and she brings Lady Byng home to meet Egg and Dan.

“Lindsay’s going to kill you,” Dan says when Lady Byng is scampering around the kitten. Egg has taken refuge on top of the fridge, looking profoundly unimpressed at the new arrival to the household.

“Lindsay will love her,” Marcia counters. “Once I tell her about Lady Byng. Egg needed a friend anyways.”

“Your impulse control worries me,” Dan says, but he’s dangling a shoelace for Lady Byng to chew on so he doesn't really have any room to talk.

Time keeps bleeding on. It’s March when Marcia is home and hears the door open. She had thought Dan was in, but he must have gone out. She wonders if he’d like to grab dinner, and wanders out to ask him just that.

It’s not Dan who’d unlocked their front door.

“Baby girl,” Lindsay says, her voice resigned and a little wistful. Her hair is high on top of her head, messy in a bun that was probably giving her a terrible headache. There's a suitcase leaned up against her leg. She never did travel heavy.

Marcia crosses the living room and slides her arm around Lindsay’s waist, taking care as she tugs the hair band out with her free hand. Lindsay’s hair falls around her face, smelling of her rose shampoo and tangling just a little. Marcia presses her forehead against Lindsay’s, bumping their noses together. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean any of those horrible things I said, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I love you so much sometimes it makes my chest hurt.” She cups the side of Lindsay’s face in her hand and meets her eyes. “I missed you so much.”

Lindsay is quiet, for a moment. She hangs her arms over Marcia’s shoulders and kissed her. “I missed you at Christmas. Slept in your bed. Ma made me a whole chocolate cake to myself.”

“I let slip last year that it was the only kind of baked dessert you liked. She was devastated, but that's never stopped Ma before.” Marcia kisses Lindsay back, reveling in holding her this close, here in their home, with their weird cat, and their bath rugs that didn't match the paint on the walls.

There’s a squeak from the couch. Lindsay looks over, and Marcia can see the instant that Lindsay sees a cat that is not Egg in their home.

“Marcia,” Lindsay starts.

Marcia looks at the ceiling. The moment is pretty solidly ruined by now. “Right, so, uh. I made an impulsive decision and the amount of cats we own has doubled.”

“What’d you name this one?”

“In my defense--”

“If the cat is named Stanley, I’m revoking all of your naming privileges for anything ever.”

Marcia grins. “Lady Byng. You can blame Dan for the name.”

Lindsay let her head drop against Marcia’s shoulder as she shakes with laughter. “I should’ve guessed. Lady Byng and Egg McMuffin Staal.”

“Egg’s name is your fault.”

“You're insufferable,” Lindsay says, giggling. “But I love you.”

Marcia can’t help but kiss Lindsay again. “Mm. Love you too.”

Lindsay lets Marcia take her suitcase, and they resettle back into their home.

Dan wanders out of the guest bedroom to see Lindsay holding Marcia’s hand. He drops his phone.

“I’m gonna take the cats and get out of here for a few hours,” he says, and practically makes a run for it.

“You left Egg and Lady Byng behind,” Marcia shouts after him. She gets a slammed door in return. “How long do you think it’ll take him to realize he left his keys and wallet?”

Lindsay laughs into Marcia’s collarbone, and it feels like things are finally getting back to normal.

When the Pens visit to play the Rangers at the end of April, Marcia gives Jordan a [good whalloping](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x757XWXz3JY) in the game.

“Skate better, asshole,” she chirps, and turns in a clean swish of ice. It’s a clean hit, and she appreciates that better than any of her brothers. Eric might argue, but he's a dick when it comes to checks and he’s not here anyways.

She gets asked a million and a half questions about her hit on Jordan, everyone and their mother wanting a quote on how the siblings Staal were secretly enraged with each other. She was a little pissed at him, but that wasn’t the reason for the hit.

Jordan punches her in the arm when she collects him after the game.

“That shit hurt,” he bitches. “What’re they feeding you up here?”

“Penguin tears,” she says flatly. “And somewhere in Carolina, the bones of Eric’s dreams.”

Sidney sprints out of the locker room, twisting her hair up into a messy topknot. “Sorry, I got held up--”

“Always so slow, and keeping me from alcohol.” Marcia beams and links her arm with Sidney’s. “My home and your curfew exemption await. Hold onto your panties.”

“Damn,” Jordan says flatly. “Forgot to bring those.”

They don’t go out but they do get drunk. Marcia hates it a little, but she’s become a gin snob, and Jordan’s got this weird craft beer obsession.

Sidney insists that they watch one of the West Coast games, and of course it’s Canucks at Ducks, because Sidney probably scouted out the games available before insisting they watch. Dani is tearing it up.

They stay up lateish, despite their relatively early mornings the next day. It’s comfortable companionship.

Jordan sleeps on the foldout couch; Sidney takes the guest room. Lindsay is out with friends so they don’t see her until the next morning at breakfast.

Jordan hugs Lindsay for a long time, the two of them huddled in the middle of the kitchen. Sidney’s already taken her coffee into the living room to flick through the sports stories that have popped up overnight. Marcia edges around Lindsay and Jordan to pour herself her own cup of coffee and flip the eggs.

She remembers, slowly, that the last time Lindsay and Jordan had seen each other was at Christmas when they’d all still been reeling and Lindsay had been practically catatonic. She forgets sometimes that Lindsay and Jordan are close, independent of Marcia herself.

Marcia slides the eggs out of the pan and onto a serving dish and grabs the loaf of brioche that Lindsay keeps on top of the fridge. It’s a special occasion, they can cheat a little on empty carbs.

She joins Sidney in the living room with the serving dish.

“Everything ok?” Sidney asks. She’s writing something out longhand.

“Jordan and Lindsay are having a moment,” Marcia says. “Figure I should let them be sappy together."

Sidney nods; Marcia folds herself to sit on the floor and puts the dish on the coffee table.

Lindsay follows Marcia out a minute later with a stack of plates and cutlery. Jordan is balancing an armful of condiments and a plate of sausage.

Lady Byng has settled herself into Sidney’s lap, and now she purrs in hopes of treats or tidbits from the table. She’s nearly doubled in size in the time Marcia has had her.

Egg, on the other hand, stares Jordan down until he gives her one of his sausage links.

“Weak,” Marcia scolds him, and confiscates the half-chewed sausage from Egg.

Egg stalks off, tail held high.

Marcia thinks this isn’t a bad way to start a morning.

Jagr leaves the Rangers. It’s not unexpected; they all knew Jagr was at least a little restless, and they all equally knew Drury had been brought in specifically for a leadership change.

Marcia is less conscious of the leadership shift. She, like everyone else, kind of sees it coming, and anyways she was busy trying to keep her head on. Jared had his draft, and Sidney kept calling about training, and she had no idea what was coming with Lindsay. Jordan and Eric were going to play for Canada.

Marcia likes Drury well enough. She doesn’t think he’ll be terrible with the C, and even if he’s a little misguidedly chivalrous, he’s never been dangerous to her. She’s not much concerned with him beyond that.

Lindsay comes to Cole Harbour with Marinette, following her around and helping with Ronja. Lindsay still looks like an imitation of herself around children, but Ronja is a slip of a thing who hides her chubby toddler body behind Lindsay’s legs.

“It would do you both good to talk,” Dani says. Marinette is across the room, stirring a pot and nodding at something Mrs. Crosby is saying. “You think every couple just strolls into eternal happiness? No. The distance cannot have helped. Talk, the two of you.”

Ronja coos. Lindsay keeps looking at her lap.

“We’re better,” Lindsay says quietly. “Really, Dani.”

“Better doesn’t always equal good.” Dani scoops up Ronja. “We all worried about you, you know.”

Marcia shrugs loosely. “I think we needed the time.”

“You need to talk,” Dani repeats, and takes Ronja to say hello to Taylor Crosby.

Dani’s suggestion comes up when Marcia is talking with Ma on skype, talking about their plans to make it out to Thunder Bay for a few weeks.

“She thinks we should see a therapist about...you know.”

Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Marcia thinks she’ll have to change the topic in a minute. Ma’s never liked doctors, and never had much patience for any injury they couldn’t see.

“You almost had an older sister,” Ma says quietly. Marcia’s head snaps up, staring at Ma through the screen. “Before I was pregnant with Eric, before I was married to your father--I was...pregnant. I think she was a girl. Your Pa thinks he was a boy.”

“What--”

“What happened?” Ma shakes her head. “Who knows? One of those tragedies, I suppose. We barely knew I was pregnant before it happened. It was...a relief, honestly. We were young, unmarried. We weren’t ready for any of you. But sometimes, I wonder what kind of difference it would have made if you’d had a sister. Or another older brother, I suppose.”

Marcia doesn’t know what to say.

Ma continues. “I think Danielle is right. Talking will help. I was so--I was so upset with your Pa. It almost called everything off for us. But we found the way to make it work, and then we had the four of you. Lindsay deserves the effort and the time, dragonet. I agree with Danielle that you should talk.”

With Ma’s help, they find a couples’ therapist in New York. They don’t like him, so they find another and when they don’t like that one they try a third.

This one sticks, and she works with their erratic schedule and she sees them individually and together. It’s a rare session where Marcia doesn’t cry, but it’s like working out a cramp and stretching their muscles after too long sitting still. There’s bitterness and upset that Marcia hadn’t realized she was still holding on to. It had been easy to pretend they were better without actually talking about their temporary separation, easy to merge back into life as it had been. Dr Hyatt doesn’t let them do that.

The anniversary fucking sucks. They handle it.

Dr Hyatt suggests they move house, since they have the resources to do so. Early in the season they start looking at houses, but it takes a few months to find the perfect place. The house they end up in is an a cute neighborhood on a quiet street. There are families at the end of the cul-de-sac, and it’s not far from the practice rink and a carpool lot into the city. It’s a house they can grow into, free of the tired energy their apartment has had for the last year.

It’s a four-bedroom house, big enough for a workout room and a guest room, and space for a billet kid besides.

Marcia thinks Dr. Hyatt was right, when they have the team over for American Thanksgiving, the first team gathering in her new home. This house can be filled with good memories, and it eases the hurt somewhat.

Egg and Lady Byng love the new house and all the space they now have to run around.

Hank immediately spends the entire dinner party cooing over how big Lady Byng has gotten and taking photos he can show to Mama Vezina, who probably doesn’t care.

“You look better,” Dan says. For this season, he’s found himself a place to stay that isn’t Marcia’s guest room. Marcia still thinks he’ll end up sleeping over sometimes when he wants to talk game tape or have a relatively quiet night in. His girlfriend is a sweetheart who Lindsay adores, and they’ve double-dated a few times. It’s a good, steady friendship, part of a good, steady life.

She’d love a Cup, and she’d love a championship. While she waits for that, though, this isn’t a bad place to wait.

Jordan is the next Staal to win the Cup. Marcia wishes it had been her, but...she’s still happy for Jordan, and she’s especially happy for Sidney.

Sidney Crosby is the first woman to lift the Stanley Cup, and she does it as Captain. It means something. It means everything.

Marcia has never been big into being the first. She likes leading the pack, sure, but she’s never been one to want to go down in history. Sidney can be the first, take that glory. Marcia intends to follow.

Jordan winning too means something. It means two Staals have won two Cups. It means a dynasty, and an expectation for both Marcia and Jared.

She doesn’t mind that expectation. It means she’s part of something big and beautiful, part of the Rangers but part of the team that is the Staal siblings. Someday she won’t play for the Rangers, be it because of a trade or because of retirement. She will always, always be a Staal.

Jordie Benn quickly becomes one of Marcia’s favorite people, ranked somewhere below Dan and above Carey. Jordie is the same age as Marcia, with only six months between them. Jordie didn’t follow the draft path to the lead; she bubbled up through the minors until the Stars sat up and took notice. In that way, Jordie has more in common with Dani, noticed for her brother until she proved herself on her own terms.

Jordie is the first defensewoman to follow Marcia to the NHL; Marcia’s almost pissed they don’t get to play together as a d-pair. They’re both rough, tall women who pride themselves on being tall and tough, as opposed to the sleek grace of the forwards.

They’re training in Thunder Bay this summer; Sidney rents a house for three months and leaves room for all the other women.

This is the first summer they have a full shift: Carey in goal, Jordie and Marcia as a d-pair, Dani, Croz and Knighter as forwards. It’s not a full team, not even close, but it feels like a start.

There are more than a few NHLers kicking around Thunder Bay, enough that they can scrape up a bare-bones scrimmage. Marcia and Lindsay have a house they rent every summer, and it fills up with NHL women and NCAA women--Dani stays with Sidney, but the other women bounce between the houses. Hilary and Amanda come when they can, followed by Carey and Jordie, and a handful of baby prospects whose names Marcia can’t keep straight. Alaina even comes for a few weeks.

Jordy is renting a house too, to give their parents space and time with Eric and pregnant Tanya. Jared is ostensibly staying with their parents, but since he’s perpetually on Jordy’s sofa, Marcia’s not sure how true that is anymore. Jordan’s house fills up quick, with their cousin Jeff and a handful of other local D-men popping up. Adam McQuaid shows up out of the blue, Robert Bortuzzo in tow, and he just starts training with them. It’s an incredible summer.

Lindsay is the first to crack a joke about Marcia’s favorite people being Jordy and Jordie, and should she just preemptively change her name? It’s the first sign that things are starting to be better.

At the end of the summer, Marcia drags Jordie to New York with her, for the sole purpose of buying well-fitting clothes for a tall, broad-shouldered woman. Dallas is a wonderful city, but Marcia has had to do an emergency shopping trip there, and there were not a lot of non-dress options.

“What’ve you worn before?” Marcia asks, rifling through the racks of pre-made suits. “You could really pull off slacks, I think.”

Jordie makes a face. “I’m not sure I could pull off dressing the way you do,” she admits.

Marcia stops shuffling through the sample suits. “Wait, back up. You think you can’t...wear...pants?”

“I don’t think I can pull it off.”

Marcia raises an eyebrow. “I’m putting you in _all_ the pantsuits now.”

Jordie looks stunning in a close-cut black dress with a green blazer.

(“Her team colors are so flattering,” Dani says wistfully on the phone while Marcia waits for Jordie to try on another dress. “Her green is gorgeous. My green washes me out.”)

Marcia sweet-talks Jordie into trying on a cream skirt-sui and bullies her into a matching cream pantsuit. Jordie looks elegant as hell in both.

“If you don’t buy it, I’m buying it for you,” Marcia declares. “You look _so_ good.”

Jordie flushes. She looks about ready to call it a day when she has three suits and four dresses, and a handful of mix and match blouses and blazers; Marcia laughs and hauls Jordie to her tailor.

“Trust me, midseason you will thank me when you can just move a button or adjust a zipper and a belt to make it fit you right. And get Sidney’s sports-bra recommendations.”

“Hasn’t she...worn the same one for like a million years?”

Marcia cackles. “I love that her gross lucky sports bra is what everyone knows about her. She’s got a weird ability to guess your bra size at first glance, it’s insane. Every bra she’s ever recommended has fit like a dream, and shaped enough to blend under professional clothes.” Marcia hip-checks Jordie as they walk. “It took me forever to realize there were sports bras that don’t just crush you flat, and it was the best discovery ever.”

“Huh.”

“So yeah, talk to Croz about bras. Talk to Carey about shoes. And Dani for accessories.”

“I never thought you’d be into clothes,” Jordie admits, and shifts her shopping bags to the other hand. “It seems...incongruous.”

“Five dollar word. No, uh. I like looking nice. At the beginning, it was to remind the guys who exactly they’re playing with. Skirts are really hard to ignore, especially in a bright Rangers blue amongst all the boring black suits. Now it’s just because I like how it makes me feel and look. I feel as good in a suit as I do in my pads, and...I dunno. It’s something we’re allowed to appreciate without being mocked, and there’s something satisfying about knowing all eyes are on you, you know?”

Jordie shrugs loosely. “I guess that makes sense. I always just wanted to shut people up with my hockey.”

“Then we'll dress you as inoffensively as possible and they'll have nothing to say about you except your hockey.” Marcia smiles. “Then you’ll play some damn good hockey.”

“Damn straight.”

Parker Staal, when he’s born, weighs six pounds four ounces, has no hair, and screams for forty-five minutes straight at the indignity of being hauled into the world.

Marcia kind of hates him a little.

“No, you don’t,” Lindsay says, looking as exhausted as Marcia feels. The season hasn’t quite begun yet, but it was a near thing. None of them knew if they’d have to manage a frantic Eric on a road trip as his wife was home giving birth.

“You don’t know how I feel.”

Lindsay raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “I've been married to you for how long, Mrs. Staal?”

Marcia deflates. “Fuck. Fine.”

Lindsay’s right, of course. It’s just been a painful couple of months for the both of them. Jordan won a Cup; Eric became a dad.

Jared was struggling too, from the conversations she had with him before her morning run. He’d been drafted, but the Coyotes weren’t hot to keep him. Jordan’s Cup win had to sting.

Parker Staal is the first Staal grandchild. He's the first baby between the four of them, and his existence is both one of the most beautiful and the most painful things she's ever experienced.

It's been three years. They're better now, stronger now. Marcia is happy for Eric, because he's wanted to build his family for years now. It just hurts a lot, because Marcia and Lindsay had to fight for every chance towards their child, had to involve a lawyer and two national governments, had to ask for outside help, and it just…happened to Eric.

She’d pulled down the box from the guest room closet, rifled through it to find the tiny Staal jerseys. She’d hauled the whole box down to Carolina with her, put it on Eric’s lap in the hospital waiting room.

He hadn’t understood until he’d opened it, and then he’d hugged her for a long time.

Baby Parker is passed between his grandparents first, and then makes his way through the assembled aunts and uncles. He’s the first nephew on the Staal side as well as on Tanya’s side, so there’s a lot of cooing. By the time he’s passed to Marcia, he’s fussy. She bounces him a little, passes her hand over his downy-soft passel of dark curls.

Eric and Tanya watch her, and neither says much until she gently passes him over to Tanya to be fed.

Eric has already gone through the box, and the green chenille blanket is what Tanya pulls aside to adjust Parker to her liking.

“Thank you,” Eric says, and Marcia pretends not to know what he’s talking about.

Marcia gets a harried call from Lundqvist’s girlfriend the week before Christmas.

“Could you take our billet for a week or so?”

Marcia shifts the phone. “Uh--”

“It’s just for the week, and we’d put him up in a hotel but all the hotels in New York are booked full with Christmas, and my mother broke her hip so she’s staying with us for awhile, and I don't want to throw a call-up into that--”

“Couldn’t Dan--”

“Do _you_ want to put a rookie in with Dan Girardi?”

Marcia winces. “I get your point.”

“So you can take him?”

“The front office really doesn’t want me involved with billets.”

“It’s literally just for a week. We’ll still be his billet once this week resolves itself. It’s just--it’s a mess right now--”

“I guess I’ll go make sure the cat hasn’t been hoarding her toys in the guest room, then.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Staalsy.”

Mats Zuccarello, when he shows up on her doorstep, is tall, Norwegian, and literally her age. She shows him the guest room, and he sinks onto the bed gratefully.

He stays for longer than a week, and she finds she doesn’t really mind overmuch. Lindsay likes having him around too, another presence to combat the places their life hasn’t quite rebuilt yet.

Mats becomes part of their life, their orbit. He’s not a kid, not really, but he’s not on his own like Marcia and Lindsay were. He’s quiet and mostly takes care of himself, being just about their age, but he is there as a presence in their home. He gets along with the cats, leaves puddles in the bathroom but makes excellent coffee. He becomes part of their lives and routines.

Mats asks her for advice sometimes, and--weirdly, Marcia finds she has advice worth giving. Somehow she’d become a vet, a steadfast of the team. It’s a bit of a weird feeling, but she’s always been protective of her rookies. Very rarely does anyone make the mistake of calling that maternal, but it’s not untrue sometimes.

If this is all Marcia is going to get, she supposes she's fine with it. She might have to be.

NPR > WAMU 88.4 > SPORTS > [Hockey Is All In The Family For The Staals](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=104597476)

Originally Aired: May 27, 2009 - 6:00 AM ET

 **DAVID GREENE** , host: Last night the Carolina Hurricanes skated against my team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the NHL Eastern Conference Finals. And it was quite a family affair. Two brothers, Carolina's Eric Staal, and Pittsburgh's Jordan Staal were both on the ice. It was Eric who got the early goal for Carolina.

_(Soundbite of cheers)_

**Announcer** : Eric Staal, cloaked by Hal Gill, point position for Seidenberg, drifting it below the goal line to Samsonov. Scuderi has been ever present in this series. Shoots and scores. Eric Staal, right away.

 **GREENE** : But it was Jordan's Pittsburgh Penguins who won and swept the series. For the parents of the Staal brothers, Henry and Linda, this was yet another uncomfortable night. They actually have three children in the NHL. Their only daughter Marsha plays for the New York Rangers. And when I reached the couple at home in Thunder Bay, Ontario, they told me that when two children are on the ice, they rarely watch the game in person.

 **Mr. HENRY STAAL** _(Father of professional hockey players)_ : Generally the way it works is you get your tickets, you're with either, you know, like Eric's wife is in Raleigh or Jordan’s girlfriend's there, or there's people you get to know, you know, and you're sitting with all the family of the players of the home team. And of course, they're cheering, standing up and cheering and you're kind of looking at them, and they're looking at you, oh yeah, that's right, you can't really cheer. So it gets a little awkward.

 **GREENE** : So how did you both produce three NHL players? And I mean, we should say, they're all really good players. I mean is there something in the water in Thunder Bay?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : You'll have to ask my wife that. She thinks she's the athlete.

 **GREENE** : She's the reason then. Mrs. Staal, what's the answer?

 **Mrs**. **LINDA STAAL** _(Mother of professional hockey players)_ : I don't know that answer. They just - they're just a talented bunch of kids. I can't take too much credit for that.

 **GREENE** : And when did you decide that, you know, you felt like your children were actually interested in this sport?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Oh, probably when they were about like three.

 **GREENE** : That's early.

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Yeah, four. I don't know, they just - we just - like most kids in Thunder Bay or probably in Canada they're - you slap some skates on them and see how they do. And after a month or so, once they learned how to skate, they just took to it and love it and away we went.

 **GREENE** : But a lot of people slap skates on their kids and take them to an arena. And as I understand it, you actually decided to go out and find pieces of other hockey arenas and basically build an ice rink, like in your backyard? Is - I mean what moved you to do that?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Well, it's a little bit of a selfish move too, 'cause we live out in the country. So, you know, rather than drive our kids to an outdoor rink somewhere in the city or something, it was just easier to build our own. Plus the winters, I get a lot of free time in the winter, so Linda and I just decided to - we got some old rink board, 'cause they do have outdoor rinks, and we just some used ones from a guy I knew at the city and built our own. That's it.

 **GREENE** : What about a Zamboni? How are you actually cleaning off the ice?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Oh, that was Linda's job.

 **GREENE** : Mrs. Staal, you were the ice cleaner?

 **Mrs**. **STAAL** : Yeah, he got me a snow blower, so that was a treat.

 **GREENE** : Your daughter Marsha is one of the first women drafted to the NHL. Do you think having hockey playing brothers affected her?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Oh, sure. Eric started playing when he was little and Marsha followed along, and that was it for their younger - for Jared and Jordan. On the backyard rink it was always two on two. Most of the time it was Marsha laying her brothers out before they hit their growth spurts, and after that it was still, uh, still her hits half the time. She was the one who watched games and tried out new moves on the ice. Eric just wanted to score goals at first.

 **Mrs**. **STAAL** : I don’t know if they’d all have played hockey if we’d had three daughters and one son. Probably they would have. It’s hard to imagine them doing anything else. I think if one of them had played hockey the rest would have followed.

 **GREENE** : Is it a similar thing for the boys, having a sister who plays?

 **Mrs**. **STAAL** : They get a lot of questions about her, for sure. As kids, though, they just wanted to play. Having a sister who played was just like having a brother who played. The hours on the rink out back kept them close, keeps them close.

 **GREENE** : Does anything stand out for either or both of you, any sort of Staal sibling moments that come to mind?

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : I know the one that I'm thinking of is when Marsha got Jordan in New York. She got him pretty good along the - I thought it was a bit of interference, but Marsha - and Jordan saw her coming, but he's like in the trolley tracks and boy did she get him hard. And…

 **GREENE** : Marsha hit Jordan against the boards or…

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Yeah, it was - well, it was right along the benches. Marsha was coming around the boards and Jordan saw Marsha, he kind of let the puck go, but Marsha just finished her check and just put him flat on his butt.

 **GREENE** : Do you hold back if it's your brother, or do you hit harder?

 **Mrs**. **STAAL** : I don't think they realize, you know, who it is all the time when they're on the ice. They're just, you know, playing hard, and I don't think they really realize that it's their sibling until after it's done. I'm - you know, most of the time.

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Oh, I think Marsha knew who was coming down the boards that time though.

 **GREENE** : She saw that brother coming.

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : Oh yeah.

 **GREENE** : Thank you both so, so much for joining us, and, you know, best of luck to all the Staal - all the Staal brothers. And the Staal sister.

 **Mr**. **STAAL** : All right. Thank you.

 **Mrs**. **STAAL** : All right. Thank you.

 **GREENE** : That was Henry and Linda Staal from Thunder Bay, Ontario. They have three children in the NHL, and watch out they have a fourth child, who, you guessed it, enjoys playing hockey.

 _Copyright © 2009 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by_ [ _Verb8tm, Inc._ ](http://www.verb8tm.com/) _, an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record._


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which life begins to come back together, and Marcia Staal grabs it by the balls.

#  **Six**

[Theatre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV1CeCVDLTQ): ( _I'm gonna burn this theatre down and pray to god for the strength to help me face the crowd_ )

Marcia never cared much for being feminine. If she had, she’d have chosen a different sport.

What she does want, however, is to prove that anyone ordinary can play; they don’t have to be the next Wayne Gretzky, like Sid, or have a brother who plays on the same wavelength, like Dani. She wants girls to know they can wear bruises, drop gloves, hit hard and play harder, and she wants them to know they don’t have to become one of the guys to do any of that.

The NHL women close ranks around each other, when they can. Each of the NHL women (all seven of them, now; Sidney, Dani, Marcia, Carey, Jordie, Tyler, and Ryan) keep track of women in juniors and the minors. Marcia watches the juniors, the girls who haven’t yet been drafted. Dani minds the Europeans. Sidney watches the North American forwards, and Jordie tracks the North American defensewomen. Tyler takes the Eastern conference AHL women; Ryan the Western conference AHL women. Carey obsessively emails every potential female goalie she can. Knighter and Kessel aren’t technically part of their phone tree, but they each forward updates on the NCAA system and their plans to elevate the NWHL.

They overlap as much as they can, but there are still women who slip through and take them by surprise. It’s hard to lose track of women like Seguin, who immediately make themselves known in the show. With the lockout, it’s a little embarrassing that Marcia doesn’t realize that the Habs have another girl on the roster until Carey calls them all to gloat. Even worse is that Marcia managed to miss the Caps’ girl entirely, and Michaela Latta is just her kind of girl to start with.

Every single NHL team has a girl somewhere in the system. It’s 2010--they can’t just not have anyone in their system at all. There are two girls on the Hartford Wolf Pack, a forward and a winger pair out of the NCAA. Marcia’s practiced with them a time or two, but neither have the polish necessary to make the show. They’re solid in the AHL, though, and Marcia loves having two more wolf bitches around.

The Pens have been trying a baby goalie in a game or two; the Stars have been flirting with calling up Jordie and her d-partner.

But mostly, it stays the same, with seven women consistently up, and generally with a family connection cementing their presence. Three of the nine women on official rosters have a sibling who plays in the NHL; their ratio of family connections is at thirty percent, far higher than their male counterparts.

Marcia gets it--almost none of the women eligible for the draft or drafted by a team at all had much formative NHL-style hockey experience. They grew up in girls’ leagues, developed different skills and thought they’d never have a chance so they never threw their all into practicing. There were years of a different style of hockey trained into their muscles. Adapting was hard. Players like Knight and Kessel deferred to the NCAA, and threw themselves into developing a women’s league altogether.

So Marcia keeps an eye on juniors. There are a few exciting glimmers, like the O dispensing with the exceptional player status requirement for female players. Gallagher makes Captain, and there’s a rash of female As in the minors. It’s exciting. These women stand out, in bright skirts during pressers, with long hair after practices. Some try to blend; some make themselves stand out as much as they can, to drive their point home.

Marcia’s a lesbian, one of seven women among the NHL’s thirty teams. She knows a thing or two about standing out.

So she wears her womanhood like a crown. Even when she'd rather be out and about in sweats and a wash-soft tee, she dresses sharply and cleanly. She never does press without a fresh coat of lipstick. She knows the press are always taken a little aback; she's 6’4, weighs two hundred pounds, plays a rough game. They expect her to wear plaid, hit on women, act like one of the guys.

Fuck that noise. There were boxes they wanted to put her in, and she wasn't going to let anyone forget she was a person, first and foremost.

She's a story to tell, alright, a sight to see. The one thing she'll never be is _convenient_.

Strong women never do well in cages, and Marcia? She's the strongest.

Eric was invited to play in the 2010 Olympics, and brings home a gold. Marcia and Jordan were not invited, and they don’t bring home a gold. Eric is smug, in the kind of way that is well-deserved. He made the Triple Gold club, something the rest of them haven’t managed yet.

It doesn’t mean he isn’t unbearable in their group chat.

**[SUPERIOR STAAL SIBS SUCCEED SKILLFULLY]**

**ICKY** (11:14 AM): all hail me, king of the world, better than all of you, the superior staal  
**ICKY** (11:14 AM): i’ll accept my prize money in usd or canadian

 **JARJAR** (11:15 AM): and yet i’m still taller than you

 **JUPITER** (11:15 AM): hahahahaha no you’re not

 **MARS** (11:16 AM): look at the fucking christmas photos  
i am taller than all of you

 **JARJAR** (11:16 AM): heels are cheating

 **MARS** (11:17 AM): gotta work with what you’ve got, baby bro  
**MARS** (11:17 AM): i’ll teach you how to walk in them if u want

 **JUPITER** (11:18 AM): we can all walk in skates how different can it be

 **MARS** (11:18 AM): hahahaha

 **ICKY** (11:18 AM): shit’s hard, bro

 **JUPITER** (11:19 AM): wait how do you know

 **ICKY** (11:19 AM): i know lots of things  
**ICKY** (11:20 AM): anyway we’re all distracted

 **JARJAR** (11:20 AM): from what

 **ICKY** (11:21 AM): how i am the superior stall sibling

 **MARS** (11:21 AM): so superior you can’t spell our fucking name??

 **JARJAR** (11:21 AM): CAN YOU NOT SPELL

 **JUPITER** (11:21 AM): HAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA

 **JARJAR** (11:21 AM): FUCKING IDIOT

 **JUPITER** (11:21 AM): ERIC’S DUMB  
**JUPITER** (11:21 AM): ERIC YOU’RE SO FUCKING DUMB

 **ICKY** (11: 22 AM): AND YET  
**ICKY** (11:22 AM): I’M THE ONE WITH THE OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL  
**ICKY** (11:23 AM): _image attachment_

 **MARS** (11:24 AM): if i open that photo is it going to be you posing with your two medals and cup ring

 **ICKY** (11:25 AM): :DDDDDDD

 **MARS** (11:25 AM): you know what else you have that i dont

 **JUPITER** (11:26 AM): Mars no

 **JARJAR** (11:26 AM): omfg

 **ICKY** (11:26 AM): what

 **JARJAR** (11:26 AM): ahahhaahahahaa

 **MARS** (11:26 AM): an arrest record

The 2010 Draft is something else. The Rangers front office and coaching staff had plans for their draft choices, but that wasn’t anything Marcia much cared about. She knows there’s a push for a new defenseman, a solid center, anything they can get to make themselves that much closer to a Cup. That isn’t what Marcia is watching for.

There are a record twenty women who’d opted in, and the top projected skater was a girl--Tyler Seguin. There’s plenty to be excited about.

It’s a big year for the Staals in leadership. Eric gets the captaincy in Carolina before the Draft, and Marcia gets an A for the Rangers after. Never one to be left behind, Jordan snags himself an A in Pittsburgh under Sidney.

She does wonder a little if the Rangers just want the appearance of a woman in leadership. Drury politely informs her that she’s an idiot when he overhears her telling that to Dan.

“You’ve been on the team for five years,” he says flatly. She fiddles with one of her pins, starting to take down her hair. “You’re one of the D-Corps vets, and one of the remaining players from the restart. You’ve had a rookie billet with you. They’ve put years of media training into you. You have leadership experience from juniors, and they’ve already got you on media duty all the fucking time with the rest of us. Of course they gave you an A. Take the pay bump.”

Marcia raises her eyebrows at him. He raises one back. “Thanks, I guess?” she says.

Drury shakes his head. “For one of the boldest women I’ve ever met, you’ve got some hang-ups there, Ginger.”

Marcia would never dare say her life was boring, but it was routine that fall. Four years into the league, and she’s starting to get a handle on how to keep rolling with the punches. She and Lindsay have always loved each other long distance, but they have their routines down now, have patterns they can rely on.

As an A, she gets to do more press and media, which she finds she doesn’t mind all that much. People have always wanted to ask her questions, so it’s nice to have the authority to be able to do that. She also gets to talk to the refs on ice now, which is a thing she kind of stupidly enjoys.

It’s life.

Eric keeps doing whatever it is Eric does, adopting rookies and fawning over Carolina fishing. Jordan mainlines nineties sci-fi with Heather, and their group chat is filled with obscure references for awhile.

Jared goes radio silent for awhile, and not in a good way. Each of her brothers gets exactly one free fuckup, and not a single one of them has actually called it in. She gives Jared a heads-up that she’s on her way, and when he doesn’t call her off she actually shows up. He’d probably looked at her schedule and decided she was bluffing.

Marcia Staal does not bluff.

She claims the spare key from a sleepy Eric at the airport and then tips Jared out of his bed in Charlotte at ass o’clock in the morning. His shriek of horror is loud enough to wake the rest of his apartment.

“You’re moping,” she tells him as he fumbles through the blankets to wrap a sheet around his midsection. He’s only wearing boxers, and all of her brothers are weird about semi-nudity around her. “Out of bed, we’re going to the zoo.”

“The...zoo?”

“Yes, the Charlotte Zoo. Then the NASCAR hall of fame, and then we’re eating the groentesop I brought you from Lindsay, and then you’re taking me back to the airport.”

One of Jared’s roommates pokes his head in the door. “Are you dead, what the--holy shit, you’re Marcia Staal.”

“In the flesh,” she chirps, and prods Jared with her toe. “Come on, we have plans and the day is wasting.”

“I have practice?” Jared tries.

She snorts. “No, you don’t. Today’s an off-day for you. Tomorrow you have both on and off ice practice.”

“How did you--Oh. Ma’s schedule,” he choruses with her on the last two words. “Aren’t you supposed to be--”

“In DC? Sure. Family emergency. So tragic. My brother is going through a hard time and I need to support him.”

“And they--”

“Let me go? Sure. They’re hoping I’ll seduce you up to New York. God knows the Wolf Pack needs help. No, we have a travel day and I have permission to be here, as long as I’m back for morning practice, well-rested and all. Up we get.”

Jared’s roommate backs out of the room. Jared himself just whines, so Marcia starts rifling through his dresser drawers.

“Come on, I have exactly eight hours until I need to make my flight, so let’s go.”

It’s not until they’re at the Charlotte Zoo, sipping at oversize plastic cups of lemonade, that Jared talks.

“It’s dumb,” he says, and doesn’t look at her. “I know that, so you don’t have to tell me. But...I kind of hate you guys sometimes.”

Marcia doesn’t say anything, just pushes her sunglasses up to rest on the top of her head.

“It always seemed like things just worked out the way you wanted them to.” Jared takes a long pull of lemonade. “And then I got stuck on the Wolves, and then Arizona didn’t want me, and Carolina just really wants my name so they can brag about having three of the four Staals, you know? I just want to be Jared. Not just another Staal in the lineup. Not when Carolina doesn’t want to play me up in the show, and everyone knows it.”

She just watches him, knowing this isn’t something her input can really fix.

“And then...you’re all happy, too. Tanya and Heather and Lindsay, and I can’t manage to hold down a relationship longer than a month since Alaina, who dumped me the second our season was over, so clearly, that wasn’t going as well as I thought it was.” Jared turns to her. “Can--I just...How did you figure it all out?”

Marcia shakes her head. “I don’t know. Dumb fucking luck, I guess.” She links her arm with his, and they start walking down the path. “Our path doesn’t have to be yours, you know? Eric did a stint in the AHL, like you. I got sent back to the O. We ended up in systems that know how to use us, I guess.”

“I love hockey,” Jared says. “I hate being your little brother, though.”

“I can’t help that. But you can do something else, you know. Get out of limbo.”

Jared snorts. “Yeah, that’ll go well.”

“Seriously. Go NCAA. Get a degree. Get a different job. Play AHL--go to the European leagues, or fucking Russia, they always want good players. Go into coaching, or agency, or management. Do something that isn’t contingent on your relationship to us. We’re your sibs, not your keepers.”

Jared sighs deeply. “I think I just needed to get it out.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm.” Jared shrugs, and throws away his cup. “I want to play hockey, but I want to be my own person, you know? I’ll keep working at it. It’s shit I need to fix for myself.”

“You don’t want to quit, then?”

“Not sure I ever did.” He shrugs again. “There’s always sod, right?”

“There’s always sod.”

“Before they opened to girls, what did you think you’d do?”

Marica frowns. “I’m sure I’ve told you before. I wanted to play as long as I could. But if I hadn’t been able to, I guess I’d have tried to coach. I’d have played NCAA as long as they let me, and studied physiotherapy. Physics was always interesting to me, maybe I’d have done that.”

“Science?”

“Yeah. I figured I’d get my degree, then coach pewee and play in beer leagues, you know? Lindsay would do her juvenile delinquency counseling work. I’d work with kids too, so we’d get a couple of our own sometime. I’d either take over the sod farm from Pa, or help him figure out what to do with it. And I’d make my big superstar brothers fly me out to see their games.”

“You really had a plan.”

“Yeah. I thought I’d need it.”

“Good job you didn't.”

“Good luck,” Marcia corrects and makes Jared pose with her in the petting zoo.

She plays well enough to be drafted to the All-Star Game. She’s usually high in the running, if not explicitly the one chosen, and she’d usually be there anyway to support one of her brothers or one of the girls.

It’s extra fun since Eric was tapped to be Captain of one team, so she knows either she’ll be playing on Team Staal, or the whole weekend will be jokes about the Staal not on Team Staal.

Lundqvist and Stepan are chosen too, so they fly down together with the group of New York players. There’s a  solid handful of them waiting in one of the private lounges at JFK, players from the Islanders and the Devils to match their Rangers contingent. The Sabres players have already done a short flight and look sullen about it.

Hank is a good travel buddy. He puts his headphones on and falls asleep immediately; either that, or he goes into a goalie meditative state. Usually he’s over with the goalies, but between Dani and the vets, Marcia is comfortable around him. Stepan is a little more energetic, but she manages to pawn him off on another All-Star rookie for most of the flight.

Carolina is cool, but not cold. Eric meets them at the airport. He’s holding a cardboard sign decorated with what seems like every piece of Hurricanes celebratory merch he could get his hands on, and MARCIA written on it in blocky black letters. He’s also wearing a t-shirt advertising himself as the #1 BROTHER.

When he sees them, he shrieks and practically tackles Marcia to the ground, abandoning the sign.

Most of the Rangers have, at one point or another, met Marcia’s brothers. The vets can generally even tell them apart at a glance. A lot of the other players, however, have not really met Eric off of the ice, and there’s a round of murmuring.

“Relax,” Eric tells them when he finally lets Marcia go, stretching and then grabbing for Marcia’s hot pink bag off of the luggage carousel as it tries to sneak past. “I’m not here as All-Star captain. I’m here because my sister tried to get through the airport without telling me when her flight was landing and I needed to embarrass her in public.”

Hank snorts and passes them with his gear bag, wisely getting the fuck out of dodge and taking Stepan with him. There’s a couple of event staff with signs herding the arriving players.

“I figured you’d be busy,” Marcia says sweetly. “That’s not my bag.”

“It’s pink and literally says STAAL on the side in duct tape.”

“Must be another Staal on the plane. Maybe Jordan’s secretly here. Maybe I was switched at birth and I secretly have a round of sisters somewhere.”

Eric raises an eyebrow, goes to ruffle her hair, and lets Marcia collect her gear bag from oversized luggage.

“I’m staying at the hotel,” she informs him. “I was just going to take the bus with the guys.”

“Coincidence, I’m staying at the hotel too!” Eric tells her, waving at some of the guys he does know. “We can carpool.”

“I’m going to steal all of your top secret captain documents.”

“You can _try_.”

“Can I get a ride?” Patrick Elias asks. He’s the sole rep from the Devils, and this was definitely not his first All-Star Game. “Pretty sure the Islander rookie is going to try to stow away in your trunk, or something. The Blackhawks are rolling in soon, and I have no intention of being anywhere near that contingent.”

“How do you have their flight information?” Eric asks Elias, collecting the Islanders rookie as they go. The kid, to his credit, just rolls with it. “I had to bribe at least two event staff and call Marcia’s wife to get her flight info.”

Elias shrugs. “I have my ways. Where’d you get the shirt?”

“Made it,” Eric says cheerfully. “Oh, shit, lost my sign.”

“That sign needs to be burned,” Marcia counters. “Hey, rook, I played against you in October, right? Your first game?” He nods but still stares at her in a little awe, so Marcia figures that’s how the rest of the weekend is going to go.

“Sid’s still out with concussion?” Eric asks, and Marcia damn near rolls her eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Well, she’s not here, is she? Pricey and Dani are gonna be here, though. And Seguin, too.” Marcia frowns. “What’s your take on her?”

“What, Seguin? Fast as hell, mostly.” Eric does a double take when he sees her expression. “Oh, uh. Yeah, I’m not qualified for this one.”

Marcia frowns but lets it go.

It’s good to mingle with the other players in the pre-event mixer. Dani is beaming and tows her twin over to chat with Marcia’s group.

No matter how many times she meets him off ice, Marcia is always surprised by how similar Henrik Sedin looks like Dani. The two of them angle towards each other, even in separate conversations entirely. They’re not identical--can’t be, as fraternal male-female twins--but they echo each other. No matter how many times Marcia sees them off ice, she’s still thrown. No matter how many times she sees them on ice, she’s still stunned anyone could ever think they wouldn’t be a knockout top-line pair.

Carey is chatting with the cluster of goalies, Lundqvist included. Marcia knows from the girls’ group chat that Carey’s recently broken up with a boyfriend, and seeing how she handles herself around the Canadiens’ rookie is more telling than any group chat.

She texts Lindsay under the table to start a new betting pool. She’s going to make _bank_ on this one.

She could give or take the actual draft itself. She’s got a vague idea how it’s going to go: Eric’s got a tentative list and she’d seen it, mostly people he knows or has played with before. She’s on his list, and she’s not convinced anyone on Team Lidstrom knows her style well enough to want her.

Eric calling Hank before her is half-hilarious, half a guarantee he’s off her Christmas list for the next forever.

Mainly because all the cameras immediately swivel to her for a soundbite.

[Marcia ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz-155NVnXc)makes sure to pout a little when she does, in fact, immediately get asked about how she feels. “We’re blood. I’m kinda disappointed right now, thought I was gonna be first pick.”

“‘Devastated would be an understatement, probably?”

“Yeah, I’m crushed.” She shrugs and sighs, peeking up from her lashes. From behind Eric, she can see Hank and Dani hiding sniggers. “My mom’s probably a little upset, nervous, I don’t know. Whatever, classless.”

“Staal family gatherings, ruined from here on end.”

“I'm never buying him Christmas presents or birthday presents.”

Eric doesn’t let her stay cornered for long. She’s his next draft pick.

In the interviews after, Eric gets asked about it too.

“Did you say "New York Rangers” and pause just to rub it in a little bit more when you picked Henrik Lundqvist?“

Eric’s expression is droll. ”Yes.“

Marcia crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out at Eric, who breaks off from his interview to laugh. The ensuing clip gets played over and over again, almost as much as the one asking why Eric drafted all four All-Star women present.

“They’re good players, and Team Lidstrom didn’t snap them up quick enough,” he’d answered dryly.

They get let loose to bond as a team, and it’s not all that bad. It’s especially fun to get the gossip about the girls and the guys she knows from juniors from people they play with now.

The locker room before the skills competition is an experience. There’s a section partitioned off for the four Team Staal women, which is officially two more women than Marcia has ever played on a team with. There’s also her brother, which is an experience she hasn’t had since playing with Jared; she hasn’t shared a locker room with Eric since he was thirteen and she twelve and they played on the same Peewee team.

Half the team is sidetracked by interviews and media obligations, so the room itself is sparse as Marcia sits on the bench to braid her hair. The benches are designed for skated players to sit comfortably, so her toes touch the ground but her heels don’t; it’s comforting and familiar as she runs her brush through her hair and sets about plaiting.

“Want me to do it?” Eric asks, bumping her shoulder with his.

“Like I can’t braid my own hair,” she tells him, and sets the brush on her lap.

Two stalls down, Henrik is eyeing them. He drops out of his conversation with Dani--Marcia would love to know what politics went into laying out their stalls, really she would--to say “she about punched me the first time I asked about her hair.”

Eric snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, well. Doubt you could do it right.”

Eric doesn’t braid her hair before the skills competition or the game, but he redoes it after their loss when her hair is still damp from the shower. Dani sits next to them, chatting amicably with Lundqvist as she combs out her own hair. Seguin and Carey are still in the showers.

Eric’s fingers scrape against her skull, gathering strands for the simple French braid he’s putting together. They’re cheerfully sniping at each other in Dutch when Marcia realizes Jeff Skinner is staring at them.

“Don’t you have sisters?” she calls out in English, interrupting Eric. “Never seen a braid done before?”

Jeff Skinner flushes a remarkably dark shade of red and looks away.

“ _What’s up with him_?” she asks, flitting back to Dutch.

Eric pokes her cheek and tugs at a strand to tighten the braid. “ _He’s a rookie. And he’s never really seen me with family. He’s probably just surprised his big bad Captain can braid hair._ ”

“Hm.”

Eric tugs her hair again. “Don’t diss my rookie.”

“I’m not dissing anyone!”

Dani rolls her eyes at both of them. “Do I want to know?”

“Talking about sisters and braids,” Eric says cheerfully. “Tip your head forward, Mars, I need to get to the hair at your nape.”

“Henke does mine sometimes. My Henrik, I mean, not this one.” Dani twists her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. “I don’t have the coordination for it, so I mostly stick to ponytails if he’s not around to do it for me.”

“Jo practiced on me for years,” Lundqvist chips in. Marcia startles a little. “I can’t do any of the fancy stuff, but I did plain braids for her before practice for years while our mom drove. Most lopsided things you ever saw.”

Marcia doesn’t see who takes it, but a photo of Eric doing her hair hits Twitter that evening. She sighs and resigns herself to months of chirping.

The next time the Rangers play the Hurricanes, Eric nails Marcia into the boards. It’s not the hardest hit she’s ever taken, but it’s not the most painless game she’s ever played.

At this point, she’s proven her shit, it’s not uncommon for her to take hits like this. It is, however, concerning enough that they pull her from the ice for concussion protocol. With Sidney out, they’re really not taking any chances with the women of the league.

She doesn’t get put back on the ice. She’s okay with that, for once. The Rangers win in overtime, so she’ll chalk that up as a success. Eric doesn’t quite feel the same way, being that he’s lurking outside the visitor’s locker room and the facility medical wing.

Eric scratches the back of his neck, looking awfully sheepish. Marcia supposes Ma has already called him. “ _Mars, you okay?_ ” he asks in Dutch.

“ _It was a clean hit,_ ” she says in kind. “ _Don’t worry about it. I’ve gotten_ Jupiter _harder. Mam’s already shouted, hasn’t she_?”

“Jupiter?” someone--one of Eric’s teammates--asks, looking skeptical.

“Jordan,” they chorus.

Eric steps forward and pulls Marcia into a tight hug. “Get checked out.”

“Already done,” she tells him, switching back to Dutch. “ _I’ll be out for the next few games. Seriously, the Rangers know what they’re doing. You’re not my captain; I’ll be fine_.”

“ _Still_.”

“ _I’m not broken, idiot. It’s part of the game. Hits happen_.”

The Rangers had given Marcia leave to spend the night at Eric’s instead of at the hotel with the team, but in light of the hit they shuffle some of the training staff around and put her in the room with Kelsey, as usual. It makes it easier for Kelsey to keep an eye on Marcia’s brain, a protocol they haven’t had to follow before.

Eric slinks in, bearing an oversize Tupperware full of roast chicken and potatoes from Tanya.

She gives him hell, but she accepts the food and the companionship with her older brother.

She plays the rest of the season, working with Girardi and taking longer naps than usual when her head hurts. They make the playoffs, but get knocked out against the Caps. She aches, the way she does after long seasons; they stay in New York as the politics there heat up. For the team, Drury accepts a buy-out, so they’re down a captain. There’s speculation about who will get the captaincy, but Marcia knows it’ll be Callahan. She has no desire to captain the Rangers. She’s perfectly happy with her A.

For the city, gay marriage is on the agenda. Marcia and Lindsay aren’t citizens, they can’t vote. But they can watch, and campaign, and knock on doors with some of Lindsay’s book club.

The night before gay marriage is legalized in New York, Marcia and Lindsay are crammed into Henrietta Hudson, eagerly watching the news and laughing nervously with their community.

When the news breaks, Marcia screams until her throat goes numb, whirling Lindsay around and hugging strangers. It’s an amazing night; she imagines it’ll rank in her memories right up there with a Cup win when she’s old enough to reflect back.

She and Lindsay make it home just as the sun is rising. Marcia’s phone has been buzzing non-stop, with excitement from current and former teammates, family, and friends. It’s been a hell of a night.

“I’d marry you again,” Lindsay says as they take off their shoes. She’s set her purse down and is twisting her ring around. “Have a big party.”

“I guess we never did the whole big white wedding thing.” Marcia cups Lindsay’s cheeks in her hands. “You want to marry me again?”

“Great wife, 9/10, would marry again.”

“Only nine out of ten!”

Lindsay ducks. Her primary defensive strategy is to cling to Marcia so Marcia can’t get any leverage. “Well, if you snored a little less,” she says, and bursts into giggles as Marcia twists to try to get to Lindsay. They tumble onto the couch when Marcia decides the best strategy is to just drop and accept all of Lindsay’s weight.

“What do I have to do to make up that last point, Mrs. Staal?” Marcia asks when Lindsay peeks up through her lashes.

“Marry me again,” Lindsay offers, and melts into their kiss.

They don’t have sex on the couch, but it’s a damn near thing.

The second wedding as an idea simmers in the back of Marcia’s mind for months.

“A recommitment ceremony,” Ma suggests on the phone. The English words sound strange coming from Ma, but the concept is easier to express in English. “ _The family would love to come_.”

They set a date for late September, not long before the season starts. There’s farmland outside of the city, and a location has a cancellation they can take. Everything falls into place: Marcia is getting married again.

They don’t have a lot of time to plan, so they go for simple and rustic. They use black and white as their color theme, find a local restaurant to do catering for their fifty-odd guests.

Lindsay chooses a beautiful, full-skirted wedding dress. Technically, Marcia isn’t supposed to see it before their wedding day, but they’re already married, which is the loophole she uses to accompany Lindsay dress shopping. They’re not going to retroactively jinx themselves.

Marcia herself waffles between a suit and a dress. She’s spent the last five years in and out of suits, albeit ones with a feminine cut. What other opportunity is she going to have to wear a beautiful white gown?

So she calls up the girls and picks something less-full skirted than Lindsay. It’s more grey than white, but it’s still unmistakably a wedding dress. She knows Lindsay has picked a shorter-skirted dress for the reception, so she gets a pantsuit and suspenders. Ma cries when she sees Marcia’s dress.

For their rehearsal dinner, they wear the dresses they first got married in, their blue and gold shirtdresses.

The morning of her second wedding dawns bright and clear, just as her first wedding day had. It’s a morning ceremony, with the reception to follow. This wedding has the trappings her first one didn’t have, with professional hair and makeup, a bridal suite and the gown.

Which turns out to be a problem.

“So don’t kill me,” Eric says, and comes into the room looking sheepish. “But there’s a problem.

Her dress is completely wrecked.

“Well, shit,” she says. She goes to scrub her hands across her face and then remembers she’s all made up. “Fuck. Okay. Eric. Go get my suit bag from my closet. I can...wear the reception suit to the wedding, and...change my blouse for the reception, I guess. That’ll--that’ll have to work.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Eric tells her and goes.

She gets married again, Lindsay in her gown and Marcia in her suit.

Their mothers cry; their fathers walk them down the aisles and sob themselves. Their brothers all have flasks, which is exactly the kind of bullshit Marcia expected them to pull.

Even their youngest family members are involved. Levi, freshly born, is sleeping on Eric’s shoulder as Marcia and Lindsay re-exchange their vows. Parker carries the rings.  Tanya and Heather are part of Lindsay’s party.

It’s a wedding, and Marcia is incandescently happy. She should have known: whenever she’s happy, thing start to go wrong.

They realize her brain is still concussed a month after the wedding when her persistent headaches just don’t let up after working out and she nearly throws up when she goes to see a film with Lindsay. She chalks it up to shitty 3D glasses, but when she vomits again trying to read for Lindsay’s book club, she takes it up with the trainers.

It’s a really shitty feeling when they realize her brain is not doing what it’s meant to be doing.

The Rangers put her on LTIR, and she sets about trying to fix her brain. Sidney worries, but she doesn’t have much experience with head injury, and neither do Dani or Carey. None of the other women really have much helpful advice.

Concussions fucking suck, even with the best medical treatment the Rangers can find. She’d never had one before, careful enough to protect herself through juniors and the beginning of her career. Even roughhousing with her brothers hadn’t resulted in a goddamn brain injury. She should have realized something was wrong earlier, but--she’d never had a concussion? What did she have to compare her headaches to?

Lindsay is sympathetic, but not overbearing. Set sets Marcia up with audiobooks and goes to work, leaving Marcia to cuddle with Egg and work on her physiotherapy. Bored and desperately missing hockey, Marcia takes the time to really get to know the women in the NHL systems.

Tyler Seguin is the kick in the ass the NHL needed, in Marcia’s humble opinion. There are seventeen NHL and NHL-adjacent women now, enough that Marcia has trouble remembering all of their phone numbers and draft positions. The thing is, all ten women preceding Tyler Seguin in the show tend to play it safe and demure for the press. The most controversial thing any of them do is get married and play hockey like hell.

Tyler Seguin, on the other hand, gets dressed up, goes out, and tears Boston the fuck apart.

Marcia would be impressed if she wasn’t so certain Seguin was doing her damndest to drink herself out of the league.

“You worry about her,” Lindsay says bluntly, after listening to Marcia bitch for half an hour.

Marcia sticks out her bottom lip. “I definitely don’t.”

“You worry about all the girls. I’ve seen you checking in on Sidney the same way you check in on Jared.” Lindsay taps her phone to her chin. “You’re like a mama hen, sometimes.”

“I am not the mom of the NHL women.”

“Cool aunt, then.”

Marcia makes a face. It’s a little weird to think of herself as a role model. Like, there are little girls playing defense and wanting to be like her someday. There are women in the Girl Brigade who are there because she’d been there first. Jordie Benn, for one, who’d been planning on ending her hockey career after NCAA, and moving to Texas instead.

She’d been wrapped up in herself in the Bad Year, always capitalized in her mind. Even when she’d lashed out at them, they’d still wriggled their way in and helped put her relationship with Lindsay back together. She’s glad to return the favor whenever she can, in teasing and prodding and dispensing advice, and whenever possible, dragging the girls out for a night at one of the lesbian bars she frequents. Lately, it’s been one of the quieter ones without a dance floor; the lights hurt her head.

Most of the women have caught on that they’re going to lesbian bars. Sidney Crosby has not, and it is wildly hilarious to Marcia and Lindsay.

When she’s out with her concussion, it’s hard to deal. So much of her life and time in New York is dedicated to the Rangers and Rangers games. It’s hard to be left behind for rehab and medical evals when the guys are out on road trips. It sucks that the room spins and her vision blurs when she tries to balance on her skates.

Dan sleeps in her guest room sometimes, if by sometimes Marcia means at least once a week. Lindsay just sets another place at the dinner table, and sometimes invites some of her university and work friends over.

Marcia adopts the hockey girls who come to the New York area. The Rangers have two girls in their feeder system, and the Islanders have one. Marcia will admit to association with the Devils over her dead body, but she takes their AHL goalie out to lunch a few times. The Metropolitan Riveters, associated with the Devils, quickly become one of her favorite groups to talk shop with.

Alaina calls sometimes. It’s always a little awkward since Alaina dumped Jared, but it’s always good to hear from her Wolves.

Adam McQuaid corners her for drinks every time the Bruins are in town. She remembers playing with him as her partner in Sudbury, and it’s hilarious to see Dan get pissy every time he’s on the ice with Quaider.

After the game, she smacks a kiss to Dan’s cheek. “You jealous, babe?”

He shoves at her half-heartedly. “Fuck off, Ginger.”

“You know you’re the d-partner for me, baby.”

Dan changes tactics. He slings his arm around her shoulder and reels her in, stinking of hockey sweat and old pads. “McQuaid is an asshole.”

“Yeah, he’s a d-man.” Marcia elbows him a little and knocks her head against his helmet. “We’re all assholes.”

Dan reaches out to tug at her braid, now reaching the small of her back even doubled up in the braid. Loose, she could sit on it. “Still not cutting this, huh?”

“Win me a Cup, Girardi, and we’ll talk about it.”

He tugs on the braid again, and backs off. “We’re gonna shave your head. Get one you one of those undercuts like Sedin has.”

“You want to ruin all of this majesty?”

“Ginger, all of us want that braid gone, because it’ll mean we’ve won something big,” he tells her, and disappears into the locker room while Marcia is hustled off to talk with coaching staff and media.

Christmas is vaguely uncomfortable. Ma is not pleased that Eric concussed Marcia, and she’s using it as an opportunity to vent about all the other injuries they’ve inflicted on each other.

It doesn’t matter that Marcia is better, or that she’s chalked up to play in the Winter Classic.

Ma is pissed, and she’s letting the whole family know.

It’s a busy Christmas, with families flitting in and out. There are Eric’s kids, who Marcia spoils rotten. One of Lindsay’s brothers brings a serious girlfriend. Jared bemoans the presence of mistletoe. It would be a perfectly normal and wonderful Christmas if Eric would stop following her around and apologizing, even as his kids hang off her arms and demand piggybacks.

She finally corners him. “Stop it,” she says, and he knows exactly what she means.

Eric looks hangdog. “It’s my fault.”

Marcia shakes her head. “I should’ve stayed out longer. It’s my fault. You can stop apologizing.”

“It’s my fault you can’t _play_.”

She pushes herself to sit up. “No, stop it. Stop it stop it stop it.”

Eric opens his mouth. She reaches over and punches him in the arm, hard.

“You checked in with me literally every day. I”ll play again soon. If you keep self-flagellating, I’ll assume it really was intentional and sic Dan on you.”

He stops apologizing after that, but she does keep the extra Christmas present he gave her.

Playing in the Winter Classic, her triumphant return--that definitely stops his apologies. It’s one of the best feelings she’s ever had, returning to the ice and kicking ass while she goes.

Instead of going to the 2012 Draft to greet the new women, Marcia is at a wedding: Jordan’s wedding.

Jordan’s wedding party has an imbalanced gender ratio; Jordan names both of their brothers to his party and one of the guys from the Pens serves as his best man. Marcia knows who he is, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction that she knows his name, and his awkward attempts to remind her of who he is are the highlight of her day. Jordan also names Marcia and Sidney as bridesmaids.

Heather’s party is mostly filled with her friend group and Lindsay. There was apparently a week-long standoff over who got Lindsay for their wedding party. Marcia egged on both sides until Ma personally called to shout at her.

The end result is that Marcia is in Jordan’s party and Lindsay in Heather’s, and they get to walk down the aisle together. The downside is that Sidney gets stuck walking with Jared, who can’t stop stammering and staring at her in awe.

Sidney puts up with it with good grace. Eric mostly finds it hilarious.

They’re all on edge for another reason: Jordan has officially requested his trade to Carolina, and they haven’t yet found out if it’s going through. No one dares mention it to Jordan, who is already on the verge of breaking down bawling in happiness.

They’re putting the finishing touches on their outfits, starting to shut down phones and stash their personal, non-essential belongings when Jordan’s phone rings. Everyone stares at each other for a few seconds until Jordan lunges for his cell phone to answer it.

They collectively hold their breath as Jordan says “Yes sir. I understand, sir. It’s been an honor, sir. Yes, of course. Yes. Thank you.”

Jordan hangs up and bobbles the phone. It bounces off the chair cushion.

“I’m going to the ‘Canes,” Jordan says, looking stunned. “Holy _shit_.”

Jared is gaping. “They told you on your wedding day,” he says dumbly. “Oh my god.”

The other members of the grooms’ party kind of stare at each other in shock before Jordan whoops. “Oh my _god_.”

They don’t have a ton of time to process because it’s time to head in for the wedding itself. Jared had run to tell Heather, but the rest of their guests have no idea.

Though, most of their guests are hockey players or hockey fans: they’ve probably gotten a text alert by now, or seen a headline while waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Marcia doesn’t much remember Eric’s wedding ceremony for crying. A similar thing happens to Jordan’s.

The news has definitely broken by the time makeup and outfits are touched up and photos are taken. The Pens in attendance clap when the wedding party returns to the reception; most of the Pens look torn between happiness and sadness.

The wedding party splits up then, Heather and Jordan to receive guests, the brothers to decimate the remaining hors-d'oeuvres. Lindsay and half the bridal party follow, ostensibly for damage control but probably to raid the open bar.

Marcia knows the sorts of girls Heather hangs out with, and they will definitely love the open bar. She finds her seat at the head table after collecting a glass of wine from a server; she expects Sidney to track down the Pens, but she’s pleasantly surprised to find herself with company.

“What a day,” Sidney says, falling into the seat beside Marcia. “Christ alive.”

“Weddings are always insane.”

“Yeah, you’ve done this a few times, right?” Sidney rubs at her forehead. “Not with a trade, I’m guessing.”

Marcia rolls her eyes, and goes for her wine glass. “Oh, yeah, no. None of us have gotten traded before. This is--this is something else.”

“I”ll miss him,” Sidney says. “He’s a good guy, your brother.”

“It’s still weird to think he plays--played with you. You’re totally separate entities in my mind.”

Sidney snorts. “We won a Cup.”

“Oh, I’m well fucking aware. You think he’s shut up about that? It’s his trump card in family arguments. Eric’s the only one who can shut him down, and then we have to deal with _Eric_ being obnoxious.”

It’s a strange feeling, knowing that three of their four are married. She’s vaguely jealous of the trade in the way she’s always been vaguely jealous of her brothers for their inborn kinship. There’s always been a degree of closeness in their existence: in being boys, in being forwards, in sharing a room growing up. As their sister, she’s close and she’s special, but there’s still that slight distance that comes from walking a different path.

She watches the angles of their family, though, of the sisters-in-law clustering together, of Eric teasing Jordan, of their teammates being there to celebrate with them.

It’s something, and it’s something she loves. This is a happiness she thinks she’ll never come down from.

The lockout is a pain in the ass, and the residual happiness from Jordan’s wedding dissipates _fast_. They all take different approaches to it--Seguin flees to Europe; Dani and Sid bury themselves in negotiation; Carey, Jordie, and Marcia start up a women's’ goaltending and defense camp in Toronto.

It’s easy to lose track of everything in the shuffle, as players flit down to the AHL and knock prospects out of their slots, or take off across the pond.

As part of this, Brenda Gallagher surprises them. She’s a member of Seguin’s draft class, but she went quietly in the fifth round, and slipped back to juniors and then the AHL without much fuss. Marcia remembers when Gallagher made captain in the WHL, because every interviewer wanted Marcia’s perspective. Marcia being the first female OHL captain and Gallagher being the first WHL captain made people wonder when the QMJHL was going to name their first.

Brenda Gallagher is still a surprise. She becomes Carey’s roommate, making Carey and Brenda the first to have teammates as their road roommates instead of female staff. Michaela Latta pops onto Marcia’s radar when training camp rosters start making the rounds and Sidney texts her a line of exclamation points in the middle of the night.

Their ranks are growing. It’s a good feeling.

As their family of women grows, so too does Marcia’s home. She’s done temporary billets, but never a full-season billet. With the shortened season, some of the call-ups are scrambling to find housing. She puts herself out as an option and is surprised to get more than one call.

She ends up billeting Kreider, who’d been up for the playoffs and then in Connecticut for the lockout. He’s a sweet kid, and she primarily offers him a place to crash while he finds a more permanent place to stay. After a few weeks, that offer changes.

Marcia is in the kitchen, putting together a massive batch of pesto chicken when he comes up to her.

Kreider looks down, suddenly and alarmingly quiet. Marcia sobers immediately, watching his expression shift.

“I’m sticking around, I guess,” Kreider says softly. He looks vulnerable and a little scared. “I’m...not sure about where to live, to be honest. Real estate is...a lot, and this all still feels...” he shrugs loosely. “I dunno. I could look for an apartment but I’d rather not live alone, and…”

Marcia sees where this is going. She washes her hands and pats them dry. “You want to live with Lindsay and me on a more permanent basis?”

“If it’s not too much trouble? I can pay rent and everything,” Kreider adds hastily. “But you’re wicked cool to hang out with, and Lindsay’s a badass--no offense--and if we’re going to work together, it makes sense to live with someone on the team? And I can help with chores and stuff and everything, too.”

“Kreider.”

“I’m a terrible cook but I can help with laundry and the like, and I’ll chip in for gas money since I haven’t got a car or a license and--”

“Kreider. Breathe. Look at me. We’d be glad to have you, kiddo.” Marcia frowns, and looks him dead in the eyes. “You’re going to get shit for living with a lesbian couple. It’s going to be a media shit-storm.”

Kreider quirks the side of his mouth up. “I mean, we’ve got the gay thing in common.”

“Well, shit.” Marcia draws him into a hug. “I had no idea. You feel safe where you are right now?”

“Vesey knows, but it’s not like I’m out anywhere else. I thought--you get it, right?”

“Well, I’ve never been closeted in the NHL,” Marcia says dryly. “But I get the community, and the sport.”

So that’s how Marcia kind of gets a kid, albeit one who’s not that much younger than her.

Marcia loves to dance with Lindsay, loves to hum along with the stereo next to the stove.

“Who’s this?” she asks, when Lindsay slides a pan into the oven.

Lindsay shuts the oven and leans back against the counter. She sighs, tipping her head back. “Simple Plan.”

“Yeah? It’s good.”

Lindsay pushes herself off the counter and loops her arms around Marcia’s neck.

“Good for dancing,” she hums and raises her eyebrows. “You gonna dance with me?”

Marcia slides her arms around Lindsay’s waist. “Let’s have a baby.”

Lindsay tucks her head into the curve of Marcia’s neck. Like always, Marcia is surprised by how warm Lindsay’s breath is against her skin.

“We’ve tried that, remember?” Lindsay sighed, long, warm and ticklish. “The baby didn’t catch.”

“So we’ll adopt. Or I’ll carry.”

“Who would let the crazy lesbians who live separately half the year adopt a baby? And you'd have to take too long off to carry. We’re not exactly a conventional family.”

“Fuck conventional,” Marcia says bluntly. “Does anyone have a conventional family anymore? We’ve been together over a decade. We’re married. We file taxes together.”

“Which New York invariably rejects and sends back for us to redo--”

“We have our own house, enough money to send our kid to a good school if the public schools here suck, we’re saving for retirement and we can send our kid to college too if she wants…”

“Why does she have to be a girl? Can’t we have a baby boy?”

“We’ve already got Kreider, haven’t we?” Marcia feels Lindsay chuff out a laugh. “And he's still hanging around the house so we must’ve done something right. He’s got a lovely boyfriend, he isn’t too traumatized, has a job he loves...we couldn’t have done too terribly.”

“I don’t want to lose another one,” Lindsay says after a while of silence, soft and small. “I almost lost you then.”

Marcia pauses, remembering. She had never seen Lindsay so constantly happy. And then she’d miscarried and they’d both fallen apart. It had been hard on her brothers too, the whole family shaken.

In the here and now, Lindsay looks up at Marcia. “Let’s try again,” she says quietly. “This summer. If after trying for this summer, no baby, then we can start looking into adoption. And only if Jordan is still okay with it. We weren’t ready then,” Marcia says. “We thought we were. We could’ve managed, but--god, we were so young.”

“Twenty-one,” Lindsay says back. “I still--we could have done it. We could have raised our son. We would’ve.”

“But would we have made it to where we are now?”

“That, I don’t know.”

“We can do it now.” Marcia kisses Lindsay, soft and gentle. “Jordan--if he says no, we go to a fertility clinic, or we adopt.”

“Don’t want to ask another brother?”

“No,” Marcia says firmly. She’s not sure of much right now, but this she is sure of. “I couldn’t. It’d be like--Jordan failed, and he wasn’t good enough, and that would be. Bad for all of us. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t do that to me.”

“Fair enough.” Lindsay tips her chin up and collects another kiss. “So. We ask Jordan if we can try again, if he’d be willing.”

“I think he would be, but--I don’t know, after last time.”

“And if Heather is still alright with it.” Lindsay closes her eyes. “She wants a baby of her own.”

“You could be pregnancy buddies.”

Lindsay giggles. “Jordan would be a wreck.”

“He’d have to leave the ‘Canes. God, he’d have so many breakdowns. You think he’d try to move into our spare bedroom to hover over the both of you?”

Before [March 5th](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2aNif71_y0), if you’d asked Marcia her opinion of the Flyers, it’d probably be somewhere around “decent team, lower chance than the Leafs at the Cup” followed by “if you wear Flyers orange around Sidney or Jordan you can usually detour the conversation for a solid half an hour.”

After March 5th, her opinion was somewhere closer to _fuck the Flyers_. She wasn’t an idiot; she knew Timonen and Voracek didn’t mean to shoot the puck into her right eye, but it was hard to remember that when she was laid out on the ice in agony.

 _That_ was her season over.

The docs told her it was a small retinal tear and an orbital fracture, words that translated to _motherfucking ow_ in her head.

Despite the number of times ESPN runs the clip, and the amount of her friends and teammates who send it to her, Marcia has no desire to see herself get laid out on the ice, writhing in pain. She’s a hockey player, not a total masochist. Lindsay can’t bear to see the clip, either.

Eric says her howl of pain had sent chills up his spine on the broadcast. Ma had already booked a flight to New York before the game had even ended, according to Pa, who was managing the phone tree.

It sucks, having her season over, but she adds a visor to her helmet and works with the team docs to adapt to the change of depth perception. It’s hard work, but--not the end of her career. She’ll be damned if she lets her last game be against the fucking _Flyers_.

Marcia travels with the team when she can; she goes with the Rangers to Carolina, despite the stupid goddamn eyepatch. She flies on her own and meets them there; or she would, if Jordan and Jared didn’t intervene to collect her at the airport. She’s swept into a hug at baggage claim by Jared, who takes advantage of her blind side to surprise her.

She’s fairly certain Jordan’s filmed her shriek of surprise by the smirk on his face.

Jared touches her eyepatch. It’s stuck on pretty firmly. “ _I thought you’d look more like a pirate_ ,” he says, sounding disappointed. His Dutch has started to pick up an American accent, which is hilarious in and of itself. “ _Needs a skull and crossbones_.”

“English,” Jordan says and smacks Jared on the back of the head. Jared just sticks his tongue out in reply.

“We’re gonna kick your asses,” Marcia says cheerfully, and leans forward when the baggage carousel starts to move. “My bag is pink.”

“Why?” Jordan asks, like he always does.

“Because it’s really easy to find,” Jared and Marcia chorus.

“Also, _you’re_ gonna do nothing, you invalid,” Jared adds.

Marcia cackles and busses Jared on the forehead. “Dan is my avatar on the ice and he has marching orders to make your life miserable. Now who am I staying with?”

Jordan puts her up in his spare bedroom, exactly as she’d expected. She and Heather are close, and Eric’s house is filled with a toddler and Jared.

(“It’s a hot wheels mess in here,” Eric had said when Marcia called to arrange travel plans. “Save yourself like I couldn’t save myself.”)

She does get to spend time with all three of her brothers that evening anyway.

Marcia curls into Eric’s side where he’s dozing on Jordan’s couch. Jared leans against her legs. Jordan is still whistling in the kitchen. They’d had a lively dinner, of siblings and spouses and kids, but Heather and Tanya have taken the little ones so the Staal siblings can spend some time together.

“They’re really going to put you [three on a line](http://www.nhl.com/news/three-staal-brothers-start-on-same-line-for-hurricanes/c-667706) together?” she asks, reaching out to scratch at the curls at the nape of Jared’s neck. He’s always loved that, tipping his head back into the touch. It always was the easiest way to win an argument with him.

Eric shrugs, jostling her enough that Jared whines. “That’s what they told us. They wanted to make it a whole media thing, the three of us against you, but you’re not back yet.”

“They keep trying to trade for me,” she tells him, as if it’s any kind of secret. “It’s like they want a Staal collection or something.”

“Well, they’ve got the best three,” Jordan says as he comes in from the kitchen, bearing four glass bottles of beer. “If any of you bitch about the beer--”

“Oh, god, it’s your hipster shit isn’t it--”

“It’s fucking delicious, is what it is, fuck off.” Jordan settles in next to Jared and starts opening bottles with an opener on his keychain. “Can you imagine, though, all four of us on ice?”

“I demand a defense partner,” Marcia cuts in. “And I’ve still never played with Eric, like. Ever. It’ll be fun as fuck to watch you three on a line, but you’re going to lose.”

Eric reaches over to ruffle Marcia’s hair. She smacks his hands away, and Jared headbutts her knee so she’ll scratch his head again.

They settle into companionship, talking shit and nudging the others around until they’re comfortable in their little pile of siblings. Jordan puts on a film, but it’s not one they actively pay attention to, instead talking and working their way through Jordan’s hipster beer stash. She gets no end of shit for her eyepatch, but she gives it right back to them.

She falls asleep leaning against Eric. The last thing she notices is one of her brothers--probably Jordan--pulling a blanket over her.

The morning before the Rangers-Canes game is filled with press, even for Marcia. Their whole families are there to see this, meaning the Staal contingent is enormous in the family section. To that end:

“Mrs. Staal,” a reporter in the press box asks. Five separate women turn.

“Yes?” they chorus, before Linda bursts into laughter. The reporter looks stunned, glancing between each of them.

“Are you looking for a wife, sister, or mother?” Tanya asks gently. “Linda is their mother. Heather is Jordan’s wife, and I'm Eric’s. Marcia is the sister; Lindsay is her wife.”

“I meant Marcia Staal,” the reporter says, recovering. “Do you think you’ll end up in Carolina?”

Marcia laughs. “I’m not planning on it. New York is home for me. Besides, you can put the three of them on a line, but who would I play with? There’s not another Staal defender.”

It’s the candid sort of line that’ll make bloggers happy but probably won’t make much of a blip in the narrative of three brothers on a team playing together. It doesn’t fit the story they want to tell, how she doesn’t fit with the boys in her family--defense, woman, lefty, New York.

The [Rangers ](https://www.nhl.com/news/three-staal-brothers-start-on-same-line-for-hurricanes/c-667706)win in overtime. Jared sulks but--he’d gotten to play with his brothers, in his NHL debut. That was something the rest of them could never claim.

They take advantage of all four of them being in the same place to film a You Can Play spot together--Marcia won’t be traveling with the Rangers again until she’s more healed, and it’s not certain Jared will be staying up for the rest of the season.

It’s a fun shoot, as serious as the topic matter is. Her brothers stand behind her, and they make their point.

This is a future she couldn’t have dreamed of a decade ago, a role model and an alternate captain, a cornerstone of her team and as good as, if not better, than her brothers.

They do an interview as a family, talking about hockey growing up, and they talk about playing against each other and through injury.

This is her life, and Marcia can hardly believe it.

[ESPN ](http://www.espn.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/11950/jordan-staal-i-feel-bad-for-both-my-brothers)> BLOG > Katie Strang (ESPN.COM) > **Jordan Staal: ‘I feel bad for both my siblings’**  
_Originally posted 25 Oct 2011_

 _Penguins forward Jordan Staal has been on both the giving and receiving ends of hard hits with his hockey-playing siblings plenty of times._  
  
But rarely have the effects been as devastating as this past February, when oldest brother Eric dished out a thundering blow on sister Marcia during a game between the Hurricanes and Rangers. The 24-year-old defensewoman, 20 months Jordan's senior, has yet to play a game because of post-concussion headaches stemming from the hit...

[SBNation ](https://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2012/11/1/3585690/staal-brothers-eric-marc-jordan-jared)> Iconic NHL Families > Travis Hughes (@TravisSBN) > **With Staal brothers in Carolina, family rivalry, bond to flourish**  
_Originally posted 1 Nov 2012_

_Jordan Staal turned down big money in Pittsburgh for the chance to join his older brother Eric in Carolina, exemplifying a deep family bond. A bond that Rangers defensewoman Marcia Staal can't wait to come between…_

[New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/sports/hockey/carolinas-jared-staal-prepares-for-nhl-debut.html) > Jeff Z. Klein > **Jared Makes It Four Staal Brothers in the N.H.L.  
**_Originally posted 25 April 2013_

_...When Jared stepped on the ice, the Staals became only the third family to have four siblings in the N.H.L. Jared, Eric and Jordan are the fourth set of three brothers to appear in an N.H.L. game as teammates._

_Marcia, a Rangers defenseman, is recovering from an eye injury._

_“It would have been nice for her to be playing tonight, but it’s unfortunate, her injury,” Jared said. “I’m sure it would have been interesting, because she would have had to deal with one of us at least every shift.” Jared grinned, a tooth missing in his wide grin. He looked, and kidded, just like his older brothers._

_“I’ve been thinking about making this jump for a few years,” said Jared, who has played three full seasons in the American Hockey League. “This is a really cool experience. It’s pretty special being the fourth.”_

_Jared Staal started the game on a line with Eric and Jordan. They become the third set of brothers in N.H.L. history to play on the same line in a game..._

[Newsday ](https://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/arthur-staple/now-it-s-his-brothers-who-envy-marc-staal-1.8293051)> Arthur Staple > **Now it’s her brothers who envy Marcia Staal**

_Originally published 6 May 2013_

_If you're a Staal child, as Marcia noted, it's not easy to get away from hockey._

_The Rangers defenseman may have wanted to avoid hockey talk the past couple of seasons when the Staal family gathered at their parents' home in Thunder Bay, Ontario._

_There was the concussion she suffered on Feb. 7, 2011 -- on a hit delivered by older brother Eric, no less -- that cost Marcia the first 36 games of 2011-12. And the serious eye injury Marcia suffered that cost her more than half of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season._

_"We've dedicated ourselves as a family to the game," Marcia Staal said. "You're going to be talking about it or watching it with us at some point."_

_Marcia Staal has had the experience of watching her brothers reach the pinnacle. Eric won a Stanley Cup in 2006, his second NHL season with the Hurricanes, the team he now captains. Jordan, one year younger than Marcia, won a Cup in his second NHL season with the Penguins. Now he's with Eric on the Hurricanes, with youngest brother Jared in the Carolina farm system._

_Marcia came back from her concussion to play all 20 playoff games in the 2012 Rangers' run to the Eastern Conference finals, but she wasn't the force that she has been this postseason. Having adjusted to the vision issues she still has from the deflected puck she took to her right eye, and having put the concussion effects behind her, she's been as valuable to the Rangers' defense now as she was before any of the injuries befell her._

_Now all the Staal eyes are on her as Marcia tries to become the third Staal sibling to win a Cup as a player, something that hasn't been done in NHL history. Brent, Duane and Darryl Sutter all have Cup rings, but only Brent and Duane won as players, with the dynasty Islanders..._

__

[Staal Family Foundation ](http://www.staalfoundation.org/staal-brothers)> **About**

_Eric, Jordan, Marc and Jared Staal; four siblings committed to family and hockey. The Staal family is excited to be working together on the Staal Family Foundation, a charitable trust fund with a strong focus on family, community and charity._

[The Canadian Press](http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/three-staal-brothers-prospects-for-canadas-olympic-mens-hockey-team) > The Hockey News > **Three Staals Prospects for Canada’s Olympic Teams**  
_Originally posted 28 August 2013_

 **_CALGARY_ ** _\- One Staal brother is a good bet to be on Canada's Olympic men's hockey team next February. Another is in the running. Their sister is under consideration for the women’s team._

_Eric, Jordan Staal from Thunder Bay, Ont., were among the 47 men’s players invited to the Olympic orientation camp in Calgary that concludes Wednesday. Their sister was one of 46 female players invited._

_"It's pretty surreal that you're looking out with this group of players and two of them are your brothers," Marcia observed. Marcia Staal has spent most of her professional career playing with the men in the NHL. As the only Staal on the women’s squad, her camp shirt only bore her surname. Her brothers wore the first initial of their first names along with the Staal surname. The prospect of the same--for any of them--on Canadian jerseys at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, is a tantalizing thought for them..._

[THE ATHLETIC](https://theathletic.com/120615/2017/10/06/eric-staal-brothers-jordan-marc-jared-minnesota-wild-russo/) > NHL with Pierre Lebrun > Michael Russo > **Raising the Siblings Staal: Hard Work, Humility, and Ethic**  
_Originally posted 6 November 2013_

 **_RALEIGH, N.C_ ** _. — “Kids, supper!”_

_It became the nightly routine in the Staal household, a scene repeated hundreds of times over a decade. The sun would set into a cold, dark Thunder Bay, Ontario, evening, and Linda Staal would call for her four children— Eric, Marcia, Jordan and Jared — to quit playing hockey on the outdoor rink husband Henry built and come inside their warm, toasty house._

_“Every night,” Linda Staal said, smiling. The Staal Sibs. would always disregard Mom’s repeated calls for grub, so she’d ultimately turn out the exterior lights._

_“We’d eventually come in when she’d call for us … but never the first time,” Hurricanes veteran Eric Staal said, smiling at the distant memory._

_“That’s because we got the last laugh,” Rangers defenseman Marcia Staal said._

_During one hockey tournament down in the Twin Cities, the Staal children played with pucks that had red lights on each side. The puck would flash anytime it was struck by a stick._

_Of course, the Staals snagged a couple and brought the pucks home to Thunder Bay. Youngest brother Jared still has one that he carries in his hockey bag for luck. Older sister Marcia has the other..._

__


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a baby, a life, and a happily ever after.

#  **Seven**

[Talk About It:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A44pmuD3CAs) ( _There are things in yourself that you don't understand/like the weight on your shoulders/and the phone in your hand)_

So, like, here’s the thing. Marcia knows her family is big, and loud, and about eight kinds of ridiculous. How else could they end up with four professional hockey players in one nuclear family? And it turns that four siblings is perfect for a lot of things: always having enough for a 2v2 game of pickup, no one getting stuck in the middle on road-trips, filling out two bunk beds exactly, that kind of thing. There was always hockey equipment that fit (although Jared always hated being the last to get everything) and always someone willing to practice at the rink.

That’s a totally normal thing: Hockey is a family thing. They grew up playing together, for all that Eric hit the NHL a decade before Jared did, and it’s not like the NHL has any shortage of family members playing with or against each other. There’s the Benns in Dallas, and the Sedin twins in Vancouver, and the Schenns in Philadelphia. There’s the Borques and the Gaunces and the Cullens; there’s the Stromes, coming up out of Mississauga, and the McLeods. There are fathers and sons, and now daughters and sisters making their appearances. She expects Taylor Crosby to follow Sid into the league; Geordie fucking Howe played in the same game as his sons, for god’s sake.

In the NHL, it’s mostly sibling _pairs_ \--the Sutters had the Staals beat, with six, ages and ages ago, but Marcia likes to think the Staal quartet is better, the new hockey dynasty. There are a couple of sets of twins, but they almost never play together. The Staals do.

So it’s not like it’s _weird_ that siblings do stuff together outside of hockey, and it’s not like it’s _weird_ that there are things the Staal family does outside of hockey. It’s just that some of those things don’t seem all that ridiculous until she opens her mouth and everyone is giving her weird looks. She definitely convinces half the rookie class that the Staals have a barbershop quartet during the summers once she figures that out.

Sometimes, though, she forgets that not everyone grew up in a loud, messy family. And sometimes that leads to major fuckups.

Oops.

The summer they spend together is reminiscent of their first baby summer, but it is a little more cautious, a little more subdued.

Lindsay and Heather are more upbeat than the Staal siblings themselves. Lindsay is prepared this time, has an OBGYN on speed dial. Heather thinks they’re older, more responsible. Marcia just doesn’t want everything to fall apart like last time. She doesn’t pretend to know why Jordan is a nervous wreck.

They don’t block out their time so thoroughly; they prepare and plan a week at a time, with Jordan and Heather flying between Carolina and New York. They train while they wait for Lindsay’s hormones to spike, trying to learn to cook beyond hockey diet staples, attending every Broadway musical and MSG concert they can get tickets for.

This time doesn’t work, but they have time for two more tries over the summer. Even so, Marcia begins to look at adoption agencies and their reputations.

June goes as May did, another round, another wait. A goalie is drafted, a girl named Genevieve Lacasse who had already played NCAA hockey and defers in favor of the CWHL. She’d play for Boston either way, and their affiliate teams are strong; Marcia hasn’t had the chance to meet Lacasse personally, but Carey is practically over the moon and Alaina has nothing but good things to say in their sparse text exchanges.

Marcia keeps in touch with the NHL women over the summer, even the ones she doesn’t totally get along with. She’s a member of the old guard now, more like to pass her time with the older generation of women. She mostly gets along with everyone, the crazy aunt to Sidney’s intense mother-hen routine, or Carey’s own brand of cool older sister. Mainly, she clashes with Seguin, personality-wise. Dani finds it hilarious that the two of them don’t get along, but Marcia was married at 18. Seguin decidedly is not.

Marcia wants to like Seguin for Seguin, not because they’re both women and not because they’re the most willing to throw elbows and make space for themselves. She’s not a fan of the hot mess Seguin is throwing up in Boston, and she’s definitely not a fan of how it keeps coming up in every interview and conversation she’s having with just about anyone related to hockey.

It goes to hell on the Fourth of July. Lindsay and Marcia don’t have any big plans other than attending Callaghan’s team barbeque, with Jordan and Heather planning to fly up the next week once they see Lindsay’s hormones spike again. When the news of Seguin’s trade and [subsequent meltdown](https://nesn.com/2013/07/tyler-seguin-threw-party-in-cape-cod-on-same-day-he-was-traded-by-bruins-photos/) hits, Marcia knows all of their plans are completely canceled. It's the Twitter thing that gets her really going.

[Steers and queers](https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-stars/starsheadlines/2013/07/07/tyler-seguin-s-account-tweets-only-steers-and-queers-in-texas-new-stars-center-say-he-was-hacked), and Seguin’s not a cow? Marcia’s queer and definitely bull-headed, and completely a bitch. She gets on a plane and gets to Boston. Jagr’s still spending time with the Bruins, and she’s not ashamed to text him asking for Tyler Seguin’s address. He gives it to her, no questions asked. It probably has to do with the fact that she’s cursing him out for not cluing her in earlier, or intervening when it became clear Seguin was going off the rails.

Marcia slams into Seguin’s apartment block with all the force she can manage. Someone looking terribly hungover opens the door when she pounds on it.

“Holy shit, you're Marcia Staal,” he says.

“And you're leaving,” she retorts as she pushes past him. “If you’re here in five minutes, I’m personally putting your ass through the window. Get out.”

She passes through Seguin’s living room, which is both trashed and filled with people in varying states of intoxication and undress.

Seguin’s room is the third door she tries in the hallway. The curtains are drawn, the room is dark and chaotically messy, and Seguin barely stirs when Marcia flips the light switch on. There’s just a pile of blankets and pillows in the middle of the bed, and still no movement.

So Marcia grabs the blankets and pulls. Seguin tumbles out of bed and onto the floor, long limbs akimbo.

“Holy shit,” Seguin manages, thoroughly startled into awakeness. Marcia just grabs Seguin by the arm and hauls her into the apartment’s kitchen. The guys who had been there and in the living room have wisely cleared out. Marcia dumps Seguin at the kitchen table and starts rustling through cupboards.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Marcia says, and finds a frying pan. She slams it down on the stove and turns on the burner with a vicious twist of her wrist. “God. The fuck was in your head? Air? Bad decisions?”

She finds eggs and ground coffee in the fridge. She cracks two eggs into the pan and digs around for the coffee pot, muttering to herself in Dutch. Seguin is staring at her, wide-eyed.

She flips the runny eggs onto the pan and chucks two slightly-burnt slices of toast onto the plate. She shoves it in front of Seguin and glares until Seguin meekly starts eating her breakfast.

“Where do you keep your suitcases?” Marcia demands once she’s poured Seguin a cup of black coffee and a tall glass of ice water.

Seguin just stares at her, so Marcia goes to find Seguin’s storage closet. She finds a hot pink roller case in the back of Seguin’s hall closet, and a couple of suit bags. She hauls them into Seguin’s bedroom, which is where Seguin finds her a few minutes later.

“What are you doing here?” Seguin asks finally, looking miserably hungover and exhausted.

“Getting you in order,” Marcia tells her.

Seguin just stares as Marcia rifles through her walk-in closet. Marcia puts a navy skirt suit into a garment bag and tucks in two separate blouses in white and green. She digs through dresser drawers until she finds pyjamas and underclothes, and chucks those into the small roller case. Seguin keeps staring.

“Dallas is going to kick you into shape,” Marcia says. She finds an oversized Bruins t-shirt and shoves it aside. No need for bad memories to follow Seguin to Texas. She shuffles aside four more Bruins shirts before she finds a wash-worn t-shirt advertising DisneyWorld. She adds that one to the travel case. “It’ll be good for you. Jordie’s waiting.”

“I--”

“You fucked up. You fucked up so bad you got yourself traded,” Marcia tells her flatly. “Now you're paying, and the rest of us get to deal with your mess.”

“I--”

“Get in the shower, Seguin.”

Seguin goes.

While Tyler’s in the shower, Marcia locates Tyler’s laptop and prints out her tickets and itinerary.

“Why?” Tyler asks when she’s dressed and has her hair sorted. “Why are you...here?”

“The NHL girls take care of each other, and you needed fixing,” Marcia says.

“But--”

“You’ll be fine. Jordie’ll get you in Dallas. Your front office sent your ticket over, so we’d better get you there.”

Marcia bundles Tyler and her suitcase into a cab and gets them to the airport, sees Tyler through security. She sees Tyler watching her as she disappears through the security checkpoint.

Marcia heads back to Tyler’s house and gets cleaning. She empties out the fridge and freezes what she can, runs a few loads of laundry and checks that all the doors and windows are locked up. Once she’s confident Tyler’s home is suitable to return to, she locks up with Tyler’s spare key and drops it off in Jagr’s mailbox.

She texts Jordie on her way back to the airport, and then texts Jags too, for good measure.

Jordie tells her that she’s going to meet Tyler at the airport. Jags replies with a single frowning face.

Marcia isn’t going to watch her girls fall apart. They took care of her when things were shit with Lindsay, so she’ll take care of them when things go to hell in a handbasket for them.

**[WHO RUN THE WORLD (HOCKEY GIRLS)]**

**JORDIE B** (11:36 AM): what the FUCK marci

 **MARCI** (11:38 AM): ???

 **JORDIE B** (11:39 AM): she's a wreck

 **MARCI** (11:40 AM): she was pretty hungover

 **JORDIE B** (11:41 AM): from you, dumbass  
**JORDIE B** (11:41 AM): you made it so fucking much worse

 **MARCI** (11:42 AM): no fuck you  
**MARCI** (11:43 AM): i didn't see any of you coming out here for her  
**MARCI** (11:43 AM): not Dani not Carey not Sid not knighter or latts or kessel or Nuge or you  
**MARCI** (11:44 AM): when you get your asses out to boston you can lecture me but not before

 **JORDIE B** (11:45 AM): maybe if you keep saying that you’ll start believing it

 **DANI** (11:47 AM): are both of you fucking serious  
**DANI** (11:48 AM):  i cannot believe you

 **KNIGHTER** (11:48 AM): i’m with marci on this one, segs needed a kick in the ass

 **JORDIE B** (11:48 AM): what the fuck knighter

 **KESS** (11:49 AM): i am so not getting involved in this one

 **MARCI** (11:50 AM): i didn’t fucking start any of this, take it up with segs

 **PRICEY** (11:52 AM): next time i’m within spitting distance of either of you we’re gonna Talk

 **LATTS** (11:53 AM): have we all forgotten segs is in this chat, you fucking idiots

 **SIDNEY** (11:54 AM): I'm declaring a moratorium on this topic. Say something nice or say nothing at all.

Things are tense for awhile between the women of the NHL. Tyler is hurting, Marcia refuses to apologize, and everyone else is pissed off.

They’re all still praising each other publicly whenever anyone asks, but that’s for the same for other women who may come along in the future. In private, their conversations are more than a little chilly.

Marcia is still planning on training with Sid over the summer, and she knows Tyler is too--things will have to come to a head by then.

The movie night and subsequent slumber party is Lindsay’s solution to the problem. Marcia adores her wife, really she does, but some of the things Lindsay came up with were a little out there.

“Mani-Pedis?” Marcia asks, looking over the row of nail polish lined up on the counter next to a pile of nail-art pens and rhinestone decals. Lindsay was setting up a bowl of chips next to the pyramid of soda cans she’d stacked earlier. “You want to get a bunch of girl athletes, three of whom cut off their hair so they won’t have to brush it in the morning, and have them paint each other’s _nails_?”

“Mani-Pedis are very soothing,” Lindsay says primly. “And Tyler thought it was a good idea.”

Marcia raises an eyebrow. “Tyler thought dragging Sidney shopping was a good idea. Tyler thought trying to dress Sidney in ways Sidney didn’t want to dress was a good idea.”

“Are we talking about the time Sidney sat in the fountain in the mall and refused to move in protest?” Kreider asks, walking backwards into the kitchen, cooing at Egg to follow him. Lady Byng is perched on his shoulder. “Because I am _always_ up for talking about that.”

“No,” Lindsay says.

“Wait, what?”

“I was talking about the time Tyler tried to get Sidney into sequins and leather,” Lindsay adds. “And the skintight skinny jeans?”

“When did that happen?” Marcia demands, staring at her wife and somewhat-adopted son. Lindsay wraps Kreider in a hug, ignoring Marcia. She tsks over Kreider’s post-playoff hair. “ _Guys_?”

“Do you need a trim?” Lindsay asks, already going for the drawer in the kitchen where she keeps her hair-cutting kit.

“No, I’ll get Sedin to do it. She wants to practice on me before she goes after her kid’s head.” Kreider grabs a bottle of vibrantly blue polish off the counter. “Hey, Rangers blue!”

“I thought you’d go for that one,” Lindsay says over Marcia’s increasingly hysterical noises.

The next people to arrive are Dani and Jordie, having flown together from Vancouver and subsequently rented a car.

“It was a long flight,” Jordie says tiredly, after everyone’s greeted each other with hugs. “I spent the night at Dani’s, but Marinette was stressed out.”

“Ronja has entered a regressive phase where she wants to be the baby of the house again,” Dani explained. Marcia shudders in sympathy, and pours Dani a glass of red wine. Marcia’s taste in wine can usually be defined as _alcoholic_ , but Dani nods approvingly at the bottle.

When Sidney shows up, she has Tyler in tow.

“Hey Sid,” Lindsay calls, popping her head out of the living room. “Remember when I told you not to fly into JFK?”

Sidney glares in Lindsay’s direction.

“Remember when I told you to fly into HFK?”

Sidney actually grumbles out loud.

“Remember when you ignored me? Yeah, how’d that work out for you?”

Tyler is awkward. Marcia hadn’t really expected anything else.

Across the room, Dani raises her glass in a toast; the nails on her left hand are already painted in a horrifying combination of teal and yellow.

“Is that meant to be the Swedish flag?” Jordie asks, leaning over. “Or...Monet’s night sky?”

“Fuck you, straight lines are hard,” Dani says cheerfully. “Are you meant to be drinking there, baby mama?”

Lindsay laughs. “We don’t know yet, so, short answer: I’m not. And I’ll be leaving soon to let you do your hockey girl nonsense.”

Sidney snorts. “Okay, that explains about four different things.”

Marcia looks back and forth between Carey, who’s nodding, and Sidney. “Sorry, what?”

Sidney gestures with her wineglass. “The whole mama bear thing you pulled in Boston? You’re totally projecting. Explains so much.”

Tyler is quiet, but she’s got a look on her face that Marcia’s not fond of.

“I’m pretty sure it was the steers and queers thing that set me off,” Marcia says flatly. “Come on, guys. We’re literally here to _not_ talk about this.”

“Fellow queer here,” Dani chips in. “I thought it was you coming out, Seguin, not a meltdown related to the trade. I had no idea until my phone exploded.”

Tyler finally speaks up. “No, uh. That was me being drunk and laughing at something someone else was saying, and then...regurgitating it onto Twitter.”

Marcia tips her head to the side and studies Tyler for a moment. “Don’t do it again,” she says, and feels the room relax as Tyler nods in assent. “Now, who the fuck took my Rangers blue polish?”

They confirm that Lindsay is pregnant in October, on the day the season starts. The baby catches on their second try--or their third, if they count six years ago--and they keep it a secret. Even when the OBGYN insists that Lindsay is healthy past her first trimester, no one releases the tension in their shoulders until they’re well past the timeframe of loss last time.

Heather spends as much time in New York as she does in Carolina. Marcia knows, from the sheer amount of time they’ve spent together, that Heather and Jordan are getting ready to make an attempt at a kid themselves. Heather wants to know what a pregnancy is like first-hand, and with the loss last time, they don’t really want Lindsay alone if they can avoid it.

It works out, especially when Ma catches wind and comes to stay.

Marcia barely tells the team. There aren’t a lot of players now who were around six years ago, but Hank and Dan worry like it’s their own baby to worry over. There are no gifts this time around, no onesies or tiny jerseys. Jagr isn’t there to give a pair of infant-sized skates.

“What are we gonna call her?” Lindsay asks one evening, when her belly is beginning to round. Marcia can feel herself really beginning to plan for their future.

“Jordan’s off the table, so we can’t name after my brothers or any of your siblings,” Marcia says, handing over the coffee mug filled with frozen peas. “What’s up with the cravings, by the way?”

“It’s not a flavor thing, it’s a texture thing. They’re like, firm, but cold? It’s fantastic.”

“I’ll pass.” Marcia sits on the floor so she can rest her head on Lindsay’s thighs but still see over her baby bump. “I want her to have a name she can find on things and that people can pronounce first go.”

“No Marcia Junior, then?”

“I’d rather not.” Marcia reaches up to link her fingers with Lindsay’s. “I like Anna.”

“Annamieke Staal?”

“Are we really gonna give her my middle name?”

Lindsay hums. “We can give her mine too. Veralynn. Annamieke Veralynn Staal.”

“What a _name_.”

“She could be Annamieke Veralynn Ruggles Staal,” Lindsay teases. Marcia punches her in the thigh. “Hey, precious cargo on board!”

Two months before Lindsay’s due date, Marcia sustains a concussion. It makes their plans to fly to Thunder Bay for Christmas a bad idea, and though it’s relatively minor, Ma frets when she finds out. The fact that Lindsay is pregnant isn’t making her worry any lesser.

Suddenly their house in New York is the impromptu Christmas gathering location; Ma, Jordan, and Heather descend on New York, sweeping up stray Rangers rookies as they go. Pa, Eric, Jared and the cousins keep their celebration in Thunder Bay, though Jared is clearly unhappy at missing out on Christmas with his sister yet again.

She’s not out for long--just 10 games--but her last experience with a concussed brain makes her a little more cautious now, pushing for more thorough testing.

And then--and then in February, Annemieke Veralynn Staal makes her way into the world, and everything changes.

“She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” Marcia lifts one of Anna’s tiny hands and watches as her baby squirms before settling back down. “Doesn’t look like she caused five hours of screaming.”

Lindsay wrinkles her nose at Marcia.

“She’s innocent, that’s why.” Eric moves aside so Jared can get at Anna better. “She’s got her whole life to fuck up, and you’re going to spend most of that keeping her from doing it.”

Eric puts a familiar-looking box into her lap. Marcia is confused for a moment, but then memory kicks in.

The box is a little battered, but she recognizes the contents. There are the tiny Staal jerseys, updated to include Marcia and Jordy’s As, and a ‘Canes jersey added for Jared. There are the little skates Jagr gave her seven years ago, the soft blanket embroidered with little sheep. More things have been added to the box, a cloth doll without a face; a rubber duck with a pirate hat; a softcover book titled[The Kissing Hand](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005VSIZYO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1).

“Parker used them, then Levi. Figured it was time for Anna to get them back.”

Marcia skims her fingers over the Rangers jersey. It smells like the laundry detergent they all use, out of habit or the fact that it reminds them all of home.

“And when Jordan and Jared have kids, they can use them,” Eric continues. He looks a little unsure now. “Uh, Mars?”

“Thank you,” she lets herself say, feeling her lip wobble. “I can’t believe you kept them.”

“Figured you’d want them back eventually.” Eric draws her into a one-armed hug, jostling the box a little.

“Yeah,” she tells him. “I didn’t know I did, but...I did.”

Jared calls her on a Tuesday evening. Anna is babbling cheerfully to herself in her sling while Marcia puts together a few meal prep containers of chicken pasta. Lindsay is out with some of their friends, a further evolution of the lesbian book club that Marcia is half-certain is just code for getting day drunk on cheap wine. She appreciates the time she gets to spend with Anna, pressed skin to skin as she moves around their home.

Her phone bubbles brightly, and she picks up with a swipe of her finger.

“Yo bro,” she says in English before switching to Dutch. “You’re on speaker with me and the baby. How are you?”

Jared doesn't usually call her, but Marcia isn't surprised he's called, either. Between the four of them, they try to call the rest of their family once a month each, in order to keep in touch with their scores of extended family. Marcia usually calls the second week of every month, with Eric calling around the first, Jordan the third, and Jared the fourth, with call times traded depending on game schedules.

It isn't until Jared clears his throat awkwardly that she realizes this is Jordan's call week.

“Hey, Mars,” he says quietly, and that more than anything makes her turn off the stove and sit down at the counter. She pets at Anna’s downy-soft baby hair.

“Yeah, Jarjar?” she mentally shuffles through the things that might make Jared sound that vulnerable, and likes none of the answers that come up. “Talk to me, what's going on?”

“How did you know you were gay?” he asks, and Marcia is completely stunned.

Her brain, thankfully, has considered this question a few different times, and an automatic response kicks in. “I thought girls were hot and that Lindsay in particular was the shit.”

“Yeah, but…” He trails off. “Like, really, wholly gay.”

“I think the best term for me and my identity is bisexual,” she says, stirring at her coffee and still bouncing Anna lightly. “If Lindsay had been a he, the things I love about her would be more or less the same. Maybe it's just Lindsay. I’ve never felt the need to explore other options, though.”

“You never considered anyone else?”

“No, Linds is it for me. You called to talk about you, though. What's going on?”

Jared’s response is a strangled whine.

“You've met someone,” she says, not asking. “Oh my god, _Jared_.”

Jared, much to his chagrin, is the last unmarried Staal sibling. At 24, there's no rush for him to settle down, but since all three of his siblings have spouses and children, there's been a vague sense of family pressure on him. Ma wants to see her children settled before she lets Pa retire; Marcia knows for a fact that Jared has been sorting out offers that will keep him as far away from Thunder Bay for as long as possible, lest Ma try her hand at matchmaking.

“There’s someone on the team,” he manages.  Marcia shuffles through her mental roster of the Canes, then the Checkers. Mostly she comes up with Eric’s group of friends, and that Skinner kid. “He’s-- _Mars_. Do I have to?”

“Be gay? Jarjar, baby, you may not have a choice.”

“No! I meant, do I have to tell you all about it?”

She inhales, realizing. “Oh my god, it's Jeff Skinner. Jarjar, you have a thing for _Icky’s rookie_?”

“It's not like that!”

“I know it's not that for _Eric_ , Jesus, the kid is younger than _you_. But everyone with eyes can see the kid has a captain crush on Icky.” Another thought occurs. “Oh my god, it’s just like Alaina, isn’t it? Should I warn Jordan if he ever adopts a rookie you’re going to fall in love with them?”

Jared whines. “He's just--he's funny. And hot.”

Marcia can’t reply through her laughter. Jared whines at her again, and then hangs up. Marcia laughs until her sides hurt. She leaves him about four voicemails that just consist of her laughing at him. The next three consist of her renditions of _Won’t Say I'm In Love, My Heart Will Go On,_ and _About The Boy._

Lindsay returns an hour later, flushed in her cheeks. “Meredith in book club refuses to believe I'm married to a pro athlete, so we're hosting next time.”

“Need me to wander in after a workout?”

“If you wouldn't mind.” Lindsay stretches up on her toes to kiss Marcia hello. She giggles when Marcia nips at her bottom lip. “Mm. What's gotten into you?”

“Anna's down for a nap, you're beautiful, and I have a plan to make my youngest brother’s life hell right up until he realizes he’s in true love. Life is _wonderful_.”

Lindsay raises her eyebrows. “Plausible deniability?”

“Or you could help me photoshop MR SKINNER onto photos of Jared’s face and text them to him?”

“Clearly I've been left out of family gossip.”

Marcia grins. “I thought you wanted plausible deniability.”

“So you’re admitting I’ve been left out of family gossip.”

“I admitted _nothing_.”

Lindsay laughs, and it’s one of the most beautiful sounds Marcia has heard in her life.

Marcia thinks in cycles. There were significant changes to women in the NHL every five years.

2005 was the first year they could opt into the draft, and Sidney flouted convention by going first. 2010 was the next time a woman went first round and marked the new rash of women accessing teams. 2015 was the first year where every girl drafted had only the vaguest of memories of a time where there weren’t women playing professional hockey at the highest level.

Marcia wonders what 2020 will bring, in the next five-year cycle. Maybe there will be a wholly female line on at least one tea by then. Maybe a solid half of teams will have at least one woman on the roster.

But for now, there is an All-Star game to be played, and gossip to catch up on. She has bets to update and cash in on. She has Anna to teach to skate, and another baby to prepare for. Dani’s kids are attending this year, so Lindsay is coming along with Anna so their children can all become friends. She has boys to intimidate, changes to make to their futures.

Of course, the news that Jordan is Anna’s father gets leaked.

Marcia is going to murder literally every single person with access to that information. If that includes her own goddamn family, so be it.

Lindsay talks her down from an outright massacre. She's of the opinion that they should address the situation and head everything off at the pass; Marcia's opinion is more along the lines of reacting will make it look like they have something to hide.

Jordan, much to his agent’s dismay, is refusing to take a stance. They have to make a decision, and the ensuing argument makes their moms fly down from Thunder Bay to shout at them in person.

It ends with half their family in Marcia’s home, argued out.

“We’re going to say something?” Jordan asks.

Marcia takes a deep breath. She looks at Jordan, who nods at her, and she puts pen to paper.

NHL.COM: Home > Rangers > News > Staal on Becoming a Mother

**A statement from Marcia Staal _:_**

_The greatest joy I have had in my life was being in the delivery room as my wife gave birth to our daughter Annemieke. I imagine lifting the Stanley Cup will come close, but holding Anna for the first time was incredible._

_I got to watch Lindsay’s belly grow, felt Anna kick, painted her nursery and carried a sonogram in my wallet. I can’t imagine any love stronger than what I have for my daughter. I can't imagine any hope stronger than thinking of her future._

_People have speculated over Anna's paternity. They wonder how two women can have a baby together. There have been insinuations that I am not a woman, but perhaps transgender or living in drag. Lindsay’s femininity has been questioned, as has my own. To be transgender is a valid identity, and there are many valid ways to have a family if that is the case, but they are not my identity and not my path. I am a woman with a wife and a child, and people like to ask questions and spread rumors._

_I've heard that Lindsay cheated on me, and I was too embarrassed to admit it publicly. I’ve heard that I somehow managed to conceal my own pregnancy and still played for the Rangers. The baby’s not mine, the baby’s not hers, the baby’s not either of ours, and in fact we’re aliens from Mars._

_These rumors are nothing new. I am not Anna's genetic mother, no, but I will raise her. Her mother and I set out on a journey to grow our family, and we will be with her every step of the way. There are scores of ways a baby can come to be, and the only thing that matters is that the baby is loved._

_Six years ago, my brother Jordan took me out to dinner, and offered to help Lindsay and I as our family grew. After many years and a lot of discussions, Jordan became our genetic donor. We made this decision based on personal reasons, primarily so that Anna would have a complete medical history available to her later in life, and that she would have a relationship with the man who helped her come to be. This is a decision we never planned to release to the public because my teammates have never had to comment on their children’s paternity. My brother Eric has never had to confirm that his sons are his, either. Their children are their children._

_It’s unfortunate that this is something I have to tell people, instead of celebrating the fact that my daughter is alive and beautiful and in possession of ten fingers and ten toes and the cutest little dimple. I want to celebrate that the existence of a little girl who calls me Mama and Lindsay Mommy, who I will someday teach to skate and dance and laugh and love._

_Marc Brown says that to be a brother is even better than to be a superhero. I’m not sure about that (I still remember who opened all my Christmas presents the year I turned eight,_ Jordan _), but Jordan is a light in my life and a gift of a brother. I can’t imagine having grown up as an only child, and I look forward to the years I have with my daughter, my wife, and my brothers._

**Addendum _:_ A statement from Jordan Staal, of the Hurricanes:**

_My niece Anna is a beautiful little girl. Her mothers are my sister Marcia and my sister-in-law Lindsay; my wife Heather and I spend our summers with them, and have for years. The four of us grew up together in Thunder Bay, and we are still close to this day. I am also the genetic father of Anna Staal._

_I offered in 2007, the first time that Lindsay and Marcia started discussing expanding their family. Heather and I weren't married yet, so I wasn't planning on having children of my own just yet. Marcia called me sometimes, to talk about their options, and I was struck at how difficult it would be for them. If Heather and I decided to have a child, it would be relatively easy. For Lindsay and Marcia, there would be years of proving themselves if they chose to adopt, or financial expense and personal pain if they went through IVF, without any guarantee of success._

_I talked about this with Heather, and came to a decision. The four of us sat down together in 2007, after I'd talked to Marcia one on one. Marcia initially didn’t want me to be involved. She was worried that there would be allegations of incest and people talking about something they didn’t understand, or libel and slander thrown at our entire family. We drew up a list of all of our concerns, and then we talked to friends, family, medical professionals, legal experts. We came to a decision all of us could be comfortable with, without sexual interaction between myself or my sister’s wife. It was a long discussion between four adults, with attention paid to the ramifications and implications of what we were doing. Mostly, we talked. Eventually, we decided._

_We talked about the ways this would affect all of our lives, and what we expected of each other. If they wanted a baby, I would donate genetic material to Lindsay. Ultimately, Marcia and Lindsay did not have a baby in 2007, but my offer stood. In 2012, we began to have that conversation again._

_People say that Marcia and I have the same eyes. Anna, when she was born, had those eyes._

_I am so proud of my sister for becoming a parent. I look forward to knowing my niece as she grows up, and I'm sure she'll be leading the next generation of Staals into victory in the NHL along with her cousins Parker and Levi. When I have children of my own, they will know their cousin Anna as exactly that: their cousin._

_Families are big, wonderful things. The Staal family has gotten bigger over the past few years, with Marcia’s daughter and Eric’s sons.  So here's to family, as big and messy as it can be. And cheers to my siblings for taking the heat off of me to give my parents grandchildren._

_Here’s to my sister, and all the adventures that await her in parenthood. Congratulations, Marcia. And welcome to the world, Annemieke. Ik hou van jou._


	9. Postlude

#  **Postlude**

[We Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5mHJYcE5I): ( _life’s too short to sit and wait for luck to come our way/light it up like fireworks/i want to hear you say/we are we are_ )

Her whole life, Marcia has been hurtling towards something. She’s hustled her game, thrown more than a few punches, loved and lost and fell down and got back up. Every second, every heartbeat, every breath, she’s always assumed there was an endgame. A wife, at first. A spot on an NHL team. A baby, a cup, a gaudy ring she’d never wear.

Now, she wonders what she’s been hurtling towards, if there was anything really at the end of her journey, and what she’ll do when she has it all.

But then she hears Lindsay and Heather laughing in the kitchen, the distinct sound of Jordan making funny voices as he played with the three baby girls, hears Jared snoring down the hall, knows Eric will be there that afternoon, and thinks.

She’s happy.

That’s a rare enough thing, and precious. It’s something worth having, and something worth chasing.

If she's lucky enough to make her living in the game she loves, surrounded by people she loves, then she's pretty damn lucky.

She doesn’t have a Cup, but neither does Jared. She doesn’t have a son, but neither does Jordan. She isn’t a captain, but right now, neither is Eric.

Marcia pads down the hall, bare feet on the carpet. She reaches the kitchen doorway just as Heather disappears into the living room to play with Jordan and the girls. Lindsay turns, and smiles at Marcia, that bright brilliant smile that started this all.

Lindsay reaches out her hand. Marcia smiles, and takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me about lady hockey players, and drop me a line for 'verse corrections you think need to be made.  
> Also, come talk to me on tumblr at satellitesandfallingstars!


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